Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy
by Captain LeBubbles
Summary: COMPLETE! Huzzah! All alone at the base and bored beyond all reason, Pyro decides to entertain himself by reading the diaries of his fellow Acolytes. Final chapter now up. Rated for mild language and innuendo.
1. The Doggy Convention and the Obstacle Co

Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy 

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy!**

**A/N- There's a bit of, okay, a **_**lot**_** of Romy in this chapter. I'm not usually one for romance, but Romy is one of two pairing I will fight in flamewars over.**

Edited for your reading pleasure- My apologies for the crappy way this was posted the first time, I had spacers, but ffn ate them. (Thanks go to Yemi Hikari for pointing them out.) Now, I've fixed the typos and changed the spacers, and I would also like to point out that even though Pyro is reading an actual diary entry, it has been redone in third-person narrative, for the simple reason that I can't write in first person. However, it is still from the writer's perspective, so things like opinions and comparisons are that person's ideas. Also, when it says someone else feels a certain way, that way is the writer's interpretation of that person's reaction; for example, Rogue's battle of wills. While it is a possibility that she felt that way, chances were she didn't. I'm also going to try putting my a/n's in bold, so you can navigate through them if you wish.

(o.o.o)

//_Denotes thought//_

(o.o.o)

Chapter 1- The Doggy Convention and the Obstacle Course of Doom

(o.o.o)

Pyro was alone at the base that day- in hindsight, not the best of ideas on Magneto's part. Everyone, even Piotr, had plans. He was alone, and it was quiet, and he was bored.

Pyro hung upside down half off the bed and sang along to the music blasting from his stereo.

"Remember…da da da! What the dormouse said! Da da da! 'Feed your head!" He flipped right side up. "What dormouse? The one from Alice? Did he really say that? I don' remember that part!" (1)

He darted across the hall to Gambit's room, intent on checking the Cajun's room for a copy of "Alice in Wonderland." After reading through the part about the dormouse, he put the book down disappointedly.

"He didn't say that! The song _liiiiiied_ to me!"

He slumped down on the floor beside Gambit's bed and was prepared for a good sulk when he spotted something taped to the underside of Gambit's bed. It was a book. He took it down. Better than a book! It was Gambit's diary!

Before I go any further, I must backtrack about three weeks. You see, Magneto, tired of the horrible way his minions behaved, had hired Doctor Kayla Skylar, Therapist Extraordinaire, to help them with their teamwork skills. After several group and solitary sessions, they had moved on to the teamwork exercises. They didn't get farther than the trust exercise. You know, the one where you fall and someone catches you? That one would have gone well, had not Pyro tried to catch Piotr. Piotr, of course, was too large for St. John, and flattened him into a Pyro pancake. After that, Doc Skylar told them all to start keeping diaries because then they could get out their aggressions and pent up emotions without killing each other.

Ok, now back to the story.

Pyro flipped through the pages of Gambit's diary, completely ignoring the label on the cover that said, "Private, Keep Out, This Means You, Pyro." The pages of Gambit's diary were adorned with things like 'Remy and Rogue 4-Eva' and 'Gambit 3's Rogue.' There were also doodles of Pyro in various execution devices, such as the guillotine and the chair. There was even one of Pyro tied to a stake, doodled flames licking at his doodled body. Pro grabbed a marker and added a thought bubble to the doodle.

"Nice try, Remy, but fire shall ne'er destroy me! Muahaha!"

In all fairness, Gambit was torturing doodles of the other Acolytes and a few X-Men, too, just not as frequently, which hurt Pyro's feelings. He read the entry of the page he was on.

**(o.o.o)**

_Yesterday was the worst day of my life, and I have it all to blame on that idiot pyromaniac John. What started as a lovely day turned into a nightmare with claws._

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit shrugged into a red t-shirt and jeans. It was too hot for his coat, and his usual uniform looked weird without it, so he was wearing civvies today.

The Cajun trotted downstairs for breakfast and found Pyro already in the kitchen, sitting at the table in a white undershirt and orange boxers, eating from a bowl of rice krispies© with a big pile of sugar on top. Gambit quirked an eyebrow.

//_All dat sugar… he gonna be more hyper dan a cheerleader on crack. And wouldn' y' know dat it would be Gambit turn to baby-sit?//_

"What we gonna do today, mate? Huh? What we gonna do?"

The sugar seemed to be kicking in already, and Gambit was mentally kicking himself for wiggling out of his babysitting duties the last two times. No way Colossus would agree to switch a third time, even if he was there. Which he wasn't.

"Gambit gonna go spy on de X-Men. Are you coming along?"

Pyro grinned toothily. "You mean yer gonna go spy on that moody Sheila with the white bangs, until she spots ya and sics the hairy Canadian bloke on ya, doncha?"

"Are you coming, or not?" Gambit asked crossly. "Cause if you're not-" It was a bluff, because Gambit couldn't leave him alone, but Pyro didn't know that.

"No no no, I'm coming!" He ran upstairs and returned moments later clad in an orange t-shirt and jeans, trying to put on his left shoe while he hopped down the stairs on his right. About halfway down, he lost his balance and rolled down the stairs, landing in a rather undignified position on the floor. He put his shoe on and grinned up at Gambit. "Ready when you are, Remmers."

Gambit stalked off. "De _name_ is _Gambit._ _Not_ Remmers."

Pyro jumped to his feet and followed cheerfully behind his irked companion. He was being particularly bouncy today, because of all the sugar, and periodically would start bouncing up and down, kind of like that little dog that hangs out with Spike in the Looney Toons cartoon. You know the one. He's always bouncing around going on about how Spike is his hero? That was Pyro, minus the dorky sweater.

They arrived at the Manor without incident, unless you want to count Gambit's three attempts to blow Pyro off the face of the earth, and Pyro seven attempts to bug the stray dogs that seemed to be congregating in the area.

"It's time for the Doggy Conveeentiiiiiiiiooooooon!"(2) He sang as he chased the dogs with a giant flaming beetle. Not that he would have _actually_ hurt them, he just liked teasing them.

"What's with him?" A distinct Southern drawl said from somewhere around his knee.

Startled, Gambit looked down. It was Rogue, crouching down a few inches away from him and trying to console a small dog with scruffy fur.

"Chere! Gambit was just coming to see you!" He leant down and helped her to her feet, immensely jealous of the dog cradled in her arms.

"Whaddya want, Swamp Rat?"

"How bout a little kiss, Chere?" He looked into her eyes as charmingly as possible.

"Ya'd end up in the hospital." She warned. "Ah'm tellin' ya, ya don't want it as much as ya think."

"Gambit t'ink it be worth it."

She sighed. "Even crazy Swamp Rats like you deserve a gal they can touch, 'stead of one who drains their energy."

"You can drain my energy anytime, Chere. Gambit got plenty." He charged a card to prove his point and tossed it into the air, where it disappeared in a puff of smoke.(3)

They stood there, engaged in a silent battle of wills, or more specifically, Rogue's wills (give in to desire or protect Gambit?), for several seconds before a pack of dogs ran between them, Pyro's fire beetle scuttling after them. They both stepped back instinctively, and the moment was gone. Gambit mentally cursed Pyro. He would get no kiss today.

"Excuse me a minute," Rogue said, interrupting Gambit's mental rant. "Ah think it's tahme ta stop 'im before someone gets hurt."

She shoved the scruffy pup into Gambit's arms and stalked off to where Pyro was standing, taking off her gloves as she did. She waited until her opportune moment, and pounced.

This was not actually as easy as it seems, because Pyro was not as much 'standing' as he was 'dancing around a small area like a savage' and generally being a hyperactive idiot.

Once Rogue had drained his energy, she put her hands to her head and moaned.

"Great, now that Aussie nutter's runnin' around in me head. Make it stop! Get out o' mah head!"

Gambit dropped the dog, which ran off with the others, and rushed to Rogue's side. He helped her stand, the second time in ten minutes, and supported her while she wobbled.

"What's wrong, Chere?"

"It's that stupid Aussie, mate." She scowled at this use of slang. "All I can think about is fire and sugar and something called a Yoko, and I've got this urge to call everyone mate." She shuddered. "How do you put up with him every single day?"

Gambit shrugged. "Remy just used to him, dat's all. It's de price of bein' an Acolyte." He grabbed her elbow and guided her over to Pyro's car, which was parked under a nearby tree. They sat down. "Don' worry, Chere, Gambit know how to deal with Pyro's powers. He'll help."

"Thanks mate." She scowled, and pointed at Pyro, who was still lying in the middle of the road. "Shouldn't we get him before he gets run ova?"

"If you want, Chere. Personally, Gambit'd rather leave him dere."

Nonetheless, he did as she asked and brought Pyro over to the car and dumped him unceremoniously into the backseat. He jumped into the driver's seat with a suggestive wink.

"What say you let Gambit take you somewhere nice, anh, Chere? Gambit know somewhere pleasant, where we can be alone."

Rogue sighed. "Well normally I'd say no, but right now I've got _that," _She pointed at Pyro, "in mah head, and his personality's over-ridin' mahne." She vaulted over into the passenger side seat and sulked. "I hate mah powers."

Gambit grinned and pulled the car out. Pyro had inadvertently given him the perfect excuse to spend a day with Rogue, and he wasn't going to waste it.

**(o.o.o)**

He took her to a quaint little café tucked away on the outskirts of Bayville. There were only three customers other than them, and they left Pyro asleep in the back of the car. The occasional snore emanated from the parking lot, letting them know that he was still there.

"It's so annoyin' having someone as crazy as _him_ in mah head. Crazy people are hard to suppress! Ah can't control him! _'Kiss de Girl_' is playin' ova and ova in mah head. Ah can't tell if he wants us ta kiss or if he's just stuck on '_The Little Mermaid'_ and had the song in his head when Ah absorbed him!"

Gambit chuckled. "Why don't you take his advice, Chere? It get Pyro out of your head, no?"

"No. Then I'd just have tha two of ya in mah head tagether… conspirin' or something."

Gambit chuckled. "Gambit's not de type to conspire in someone else's head."

"Gambit…" She shook her head. "Why do you always talk about yourself in tha third person? Do you not like pronouns or somethin'?"

"It ads to de appeal, no?" He leaned across the table toward her. She followed suit and smiled.

"No," She said, and stood up and walked out of the restaurant. Gambit sighed and paid the bill.

"Gambit do _not_ understan' dis woman."

**(o.o.o)**

Here the narrative stopped, and Gambit had scribbled down a not. _Rogue is a total mystery. One minute, she seems as if she likes me, and the next, it's as if someone's flipped a switch and she becomes a whole different person. It's not even like she's playing hard-to-get, either. I wish she would just tell me how she feels instead of playing with my emotions like she always does._

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit was enjoying himself. He was with Rogue, and things were going well. Sure Pyro was still snoring in the back seat, but even that was forgettable. Things were going so well, in fact, that Gambit was pretty much accepting the fact that something was about to happen.

"Ow, crikey, my head! 'T's pounding like that time Sab's threw me through the walls!" He sat up, clutching his head. "What ran over me?"

Gambit sighed. "Bout time you woke up. Y'been out like a light for an hour o' two now."

"We were startin' to bet on how long y' were gonna sleep." Rogue turned to Gambit. "Ah won, by the way."

"Merde," he said softly, and out loud, "That y'did, Chere. Gambit'll pay ya when we get back."

At precisely that moment, a chain of events happened that made Gambit's day go from gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow to Vegeta-is-about-to-blast-you-for-eating-his-Lucky-Charms©.

First, a large hairy Canadian thing dropped out of the tree they were passing under, causing Gambit to slam on the brakes, which caused the car to skid into said tree, in turn causing Pyro to squeal like a little girl, presumably at the fact that the large hairy Canadian thing was about to kill them, but possibly because there were now several dents in his convertible. Gambit let out a long chain of French curses as Wolverine pulled him bodily from the car and threw him onto the ground.

"Enough of the dishware, Gumbo," he growled. (4) "You next, Crocodile Dundee."

Pyro yelped and jumped out of the car. He dropped onto the ground beside Gambit and gave Logan his most pleading look.

"Please don't kill me, I was unconscious! I had nothing to do with this!"

"Pyro!"

"Sorry, Rem, y'can't always save everybody."

"Look, I don't care what you did or didn't do, you're both coming back to the manor now."

"Why?"

"Ask the Professor when ya see 'im. He didn't seem to think I needed to know."

He stalked off, dragging Australian and Cajun behind him. Rogue followed, fiddling with a Zippo lighter that she'd stolen from Pyro while she had his powers and resulting pyromania.

**(o.o.o)**

"Ah, Gambit and Pyro." Xavier folded his hands pleasantly as Wolverine threw them unceremoniously onto the floor of the Professor's office. Rogue stood off to the side, curious as to what he could _possibly_ want with them. "You probably want to know what I sent Wolverine to fetch you for."

"Yes," they said, more or less simultaneously.

"I have noticed that the two of you, and your friend Colossus as well, seem to spend a good deal of time with my students and around the school. I thought I might extend an invitation to you to join with the X-Men, or at the very least as allies. The invitation goes to Sabretooth and Mastermind as well, though I doubt very much that Sabretooth would be interested in joining any team with Wolverine on it." At this Wolverine snorted. "Or that Wolverine would be willing to stay on a team that Sabretooth were to join," he added.

"I dunno, mate," Pyro said, rubbing his chin in thought. "Wouldn' be right ta jus' up and leave ole Magsy, jus' like that." He grinned. "Besides, it don' seem like the X-Men ever get to have fun."

Xavier's next line probably would have sounded something like this: "No, we do not do anything fun, because we are sticks in the mud and think only how we are told, but we are a team and we care about each other, blah blah blah." However, Wolverine spoke first.

"Why don't I show 'em exactly how much _fun_ we have, Professor?" He shicked out one claw and held it threateningly under Pyro's nose. "They'll know what fun is when I get done with them."

"Very well, Logan. Just don't go too hard on them."

Wolverine smiled sadistically. "Whatever you say, Chuck. Right this way, boys."

Gambit sighed. It was going to be one of _those_ days, he could just feel it.

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit had left another note at this point.

_I know now why Sabretooth considers Wolverine his greatest opponent. He made us take what Mon Chere called the Obstacle Course of Doom, and according to Tabby, his idea of a laugh is to add more insanely fatal obstacles. Since it's Pyro's fault I had to go on the obstacle course instead of spending more time with Mon Chere, I have decided that I will kill him in the most slow and painful way possible._

**(o.o.o)**

Tabby and Kitty were sitting on the fountain when Wolverine dragged the two Acolytes by. Their gaze followed the path he was taking and immediately concluded where they were going. Kitty giggled.

"It looks like Bobby won't be the first to experience the new additions Mr. Logan added to the Obstacle Course of Doom, after all," she said to Tabby, then called to Gambit and Pyro, "Good luck! Try not to die!"

Prior to them leaving, Rogue had informed them of what Wolverine had in mind.

"_We call it tha Obstacle Course of Doom," she explained. "Logan saves it for punishing tha students or fo' getting' rid o' aggressions. No one's eva made it all the way to tha end, not even Logan. They always give up first."_

_Gambit had smirked at this statement. "Den Gambit'll be de first. Maybe you reward him wid a kiss if he do, no?" _

Now that the course was laid out in front of him, he didn't feel quite so confident. He could see sand traps, water traps, barbed wire, walls, barbed wire on walls, fences, columns, a mini swamp, metal tentacles, a mini ravine, a large pit, rocks of all shape, size, and color, catapults, lasers, cages, nets, and for some strange reason, a straw scarecrow dressed and painted to resemble Cyclopes.

That was just the stuff that hadn't been hidden.

Pyro was visibly shaking in his orange high-tops, and Gambit was beginning to wonder if maybe begging for mercy was _really_ below his dignity.

"Well what are ya' waitin' for?" Wolverine asked viciously. "Get started."

He pushed them into the boundary of the course and hit the on button.

It was, in a word, a nightmare. They had barely regained their balance when a claw on the end of a long metal tentacle reached over and grabbed Gambit by the back of his shirt. It swung him around the air amid various French curses. He tried to charge the tentacle, but he couldn't manage to get a good hold and it continued to swing him.

"Hang on, Rem!" Pyro called.

He dug around in his pockets searching for his lighter, but it was gone. Gambit swore again when he remembered that Rogue had taken the pyromaniac's lighter. He reached into his pocket for his cards and threw one at the claw. It exploded, dropping him to the ground.

"I don' have me lighter, mate!" Pyro said frantically, once Gambit was on the ground again. Gambit took out his staff and thrust it into Pyro's hands.

"You know how to use dat. Use it!"

There was no more time for talking after that, because they had to focus on getting through the course. They immediately took off in the general direction of the end. Not two seconds later, a metal wall shot out of the ground in front of them. Without thinking twice, Pyro used Gambit's staff to vault on top of it. He reached down and grabbed his Cajun companion and pulled him up after him. They jumped down, and the ground fell out from under them. Gambit grabbed the ledge of the pit with one hand and the belt loop of Pyro's jeans with the other. He swung him out of the hole and climbed up after him.

After that was a clear stretch, or at least what seemed like one. About halfway across, Pyro managed to trip a wire stretched across the field, and then he was dangling upside down from a pole that shot out of the ground. Using Remy's staff, he undid the knot and flipped back onto the ground.

Gambit was a little way ahead, fighting the Cyclops scarecrow, which was in fact a robot. Scott-bot shot eyebeams at the Cajun, who jumped and dodged, dancing around the robot. Pyro caught up and tossed the staff at it. The staff buried itself in its chest, and Gambit grabbed it. He used it to trip the bot, and charged it before it could get up. They ran, and Gambit shoved Pyro onto the ground just as the resulting explosion shook the grounds.

As they climbed to their feet, a large portion of the field opened up, and a series of columns leading across the resulting chasm rose up. The columns wobbled a bit, unsteady due to the small center of gravity available. Gambit gulped, but Pyro, the adrenaline pumping so hard that fear was not even optional, leap-frogged over them. Gambit followed after a moment's hesitation. At one point he slipped, and managed to grab an outcrop on the column. In his haste, he accidentally charged it, and the resulting explosion set him soaring out of the pit to where Pyro was waiting.

There was a mini-swamp after the chasm. This Gambit had no problem navigating; in swamps he was in his element. He guided Pyro past the bogs and managed to only get stuck once. A conveniently placed log assisted them in getting out, and they ran along it the rest of the way to the shore.

There was a quarry next, and just when Gambit climbed on top of the first rock, several spikes shot out of it, coming uncomfortably close to skewering him. He broke off one of the spikes and used it as a replacement staff to vault along the rocks and avoid the traps that sprung from them, while Pyro followed suit close behind.

The quarry behind them, they now had to deal with a maze of barbed wire and nets. Pyro snagged on it on his first step, and got the idea to crawl under it. Gambit waited until he had emerged on the other side before reaching down and charging the entire thing. It exploded, and he caught up with Pyro on the other side.

They paused then to catch their breath. They were at the top of a slope, and they could see to the end of the course.

"Aw, man!" Pyro said.

They weren't even halfway through.

They took the hill at a steady trot. There were no apparent obstacles, but there could always be some hidden below the ground- and sure enough, halfway to the bottom of the hill, machines set up around them began firing off lasers completely at random. Gambit managed to evade them, but Pyro singed a hole into the seat of his jeans. He yelped, and Gambit turned to him. This moment of distraction was all the lasers needed. One hit him square in the chest, and knocked him down the hill into an electric fence. His scream cut through the air, and Pyro half ran, half slid down the hill to him.

Since he didn't have his lighter, he had to find another way to shut off the fence, which had seemingly come to life and wrapped Gambit up to stop him going anywhere. He finally settled on using the staff to destroy the control panel of the electric tentacles. It let go of Gambit, who fell to the ground on all fours, gasping for breath.

Pyro helped him to his feet.

"Are you good to go on, mate?" The electricity had charred away portions of Gambit's shirt, and he was smoking slightly. Black marks adorned the portions of exposed skin. "Y' don' look s' good."

"No, Gambit's aright. He… he be fine."

He staggered away past the now dormant electric tentacles, muttering to himself in French- he was too shaken up to form coherent English sentences.

They came to a mini ravine next. They got over this fairly easily by using the staff to vault over. They landed on the edge of a wide stretch of water, and managed to wade about halfway across before the large robotic fish swam over to them. Gambit, having had enough of the whole thing, charged the water around them, destroying the fish. The resulting shockwave carried them to the opposite shore.

They landed in a heap in the sand and just stayed there. The Obstacle Course of Doom had gotten to them. They had given up.

How long they lay there, they didn't know, but after a while, Pyro stirred and rolled off of Gambit. He sat up and buried his fingers in his spiky red-blonde hair and stared at the ground.

"Ehhh, Remmers, I don' think I c'n finish the course." There was silence. "Remy?"

He shook Gambit frantically, and the Cajun grunted in reply. It was the only response he could manage. He had been feeling drained since the electric tentacles had shocked him, and charging the water had completely drained his energy. He couldn't even manage the energy to swear.

His last coherent thought was that Rogue would not like it that he'd given up, and then he blacked out.

**(o.o.o)**

He woke some time later in an infirmary. The window nearby was open, allowing cool air to blow in; from the moon high in the sky, he could tell it was probably somewhere around midnight.

He sat up and looked around. Pyro was asleep on the next bed, his sheets wrapped around his legs and one arm raised above his head. As Gambit watched, he muttered something about pudding and rolled over.

"Ah, good, you're awake."

Gambit whipped his head around and saw the furry blue man- what was his name? Beast?- coming toward him.

"What happened? De last t'ing Gambit remember is de obstacle course dat Wolverine made us do."

"Well then let me fill you in. Shortly after you passed out, Pyro called for assistance. Nightcrawler came and brought you back to the infirmary, but Pyro insisted on finishing the course alone."

"Why'd he go and do a fool t'ing like dat?"

"I asked him. He said, 'We can't disappoint the moody Sheila. Remmers is down for the count, so I have to finish alone.' He also said that it was his fault the Electric Tentacles were able to cause you so much damage."

"Did he finish?"

"Why yes, as a matter of fact he did. He is the first to do so, however, Logan has insisted that it doesn't count, since he used the lighter Nightcrawler brought him to start a fire that destroyed the remaining obstacle course. He's sulking now; he'll have to rebuild the course. Regardless of whether the win counts, the fact remains that the two of you got farther than anyone has before."

"Well… Dat's always nice t' know." He stood up. "Gambit be seeing y' den."

He wobbled a bit, and Beast grabbed his elbow and forced him to sit back down.

"You're not going anywhere. You're not fit."

"Gambit be fine. Ng." He held his head. "Soon as de room stop spinnin,' anyway."

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that. There is no reason for you to leave so quickly. You are recovering, and Magneto has already been informed of your situation. He will not expect you home until tomorrow at the soonest. If you are feeling well then, then you may leave."

Gambit tried to stand and found this quite difficult. He lay back down, squinching his eyes shut against the pain in his head.

"All right. You win. Gambit be a good boy an' stay put."

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit woke up late in the morning. Pyro was still asleep- this came as no surprise, since Pyro was unaware that there was a time _before_ 11 am. Gambit stretched, surprised at how loudly his bones popped as he did. His clothes were folded up on a table beside his bed. He changed into them before shaking Pyro.

"S' too early t' get up," Pyro mumbled. He sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Whr' 'm I?"

"We at de Institute. We did dat Obstacle Course o' Doom yesterday, remember?"

"Oh yeah, I remember now. They said I was the first person ever ta' finish the course!"

He stretched, and sitting there in just his undershirt and boxers, Gambit could finally see the damage that Logan's deathtrap had done to them.

Scratches, presumably from the barbed wire, adorned his scrawny arms and what was visible of his torso. One eye was puffy and swollen, and a burn mark, which Gambit found out later was the result of a laser, was under the other. His right index and middle finger were bound in a splint, and several bruises adorned his pale chicken legs.

He caught Gambit staring at him and grinned.

"Don' worry, mate, I don't feel nearly as bad as you look. Besides, I didn't leave the course unconscious. And you know me. Residual and all that."

"You mean resilient, Mon Ami." Pyro's ability to recover quickly from trauma was one of the things that Magneto had found appealing in him. Though his healing prowess was the same as any other person, he bounced back quickly. In essence, nothing could get him down for long.

Gambit considered him for a minute while he dressed.

"Why'd you do it, Pyro?"

"Why'd I do what?"

"You know."

Pyro smiled at him. "You know why, Remy. That hairy guy said we couldn't. And you know I can't say know to a challenge. Besides, that moody Sheila of yours woulda been disappointed."

Gambit chose to ignore this comment and looked around.

"By de way, where is Rogue? She not even care dat poor Gambit's in de hospital?"

Pyro shrugged. "Who knows with Sheila's, mate? 'Specially that one. She's moodier then a crocodile with a sunburn."

Gambit laughed at this and the two made their way to the kitchen. Or at least, in the general direction of the kitchen. Having spent very little time in the Institute, neither of them was familiar with room locations- except for Rogue's, of course. Gambit could find his way to Rogue's room blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back. The kitchen, on the other hand, was a different story entirely.

They were soon lost.

"Merde," Gambit said for the umpteenth time. The room they had just checked was a broom closet- the third one in ten minutes. "Why dey got so many broom closets, anyway? S' not natural."

"It's so the nippers'll have somewhere t' run off to t' make out," Pyro explained, completely serious. "With so many kids here, they gotta have lot's o' closets."

"Well we completely lost. Maybe if Gambit get deir 'ttention," Gambit suggested.

He grabbed a broom and prepared to charge it, but Pyro yanked it away from him.

"Are y' crazy, mate? If you ignite that thing here, around all those cleaning chemicals, you'll blow up the entire house! And us!"

Gambit closed his eyes. _//He's right, dammit. When did de boy come to be so insightful?//_

"Fine, den how do you suggest we find our way to de kitchen? Gambit getting' hungry."

"Er…" Pyro looked around, searching, but for what Gambit had no idea. After not finding what he was looking for, he shrugged. "Dunno, mate. If we had a window, we could find it from the outside, but-"

"_Je l'ai_! Gambit know what to do!"

He took out a card and charged it before throwing it into the air. It burst in a small explosion of smoke, and Gambit watched intently before taking off to the left end of the hallway. Pyro trotted after him.

"What'd ya do, mate? How d'ya know ta go this way?"

Gambit stopped. "Gambit show you, p'tite. Watch carefully dis time." He followed suit with another card. "You see which way de smoke goes as it dissolves? Dat means dere's n' open window in de opposite d'rection."

"I get it!" Pyro said happily, and darted off in the direction of the supposed open window. "Hey Rem, I found it!" Without looking, he jumped out of the window.

"Ow!"

"Vatch vhere you're landing, vould you?"

"Oh, I bruised me bum!"

"You're sitting on mein tail!"

"You're crushing my spleen!"

"That's novere near your spleen, _sie demmes_ pyromaniac!"

"What?"

"Vat?"

Strangely, this entire scene took place in the ten seconds it took Gambit to rush to the window and see whom Pyro had landed on. He leaned on the windowsill and peered over it. It was Rogue's brother, the one with the fur- but then, Rogue only had one brother, didn't she? He and Pyro were tangled up on the ground below the window. Kurt was speaking franticly in German while he attempted to disentangle himself from Pyro, who was making the task difficult by the simple fact that he was trying to help.

"Look before you go jumping out of vindows next time!" he said angrily, once they were free.

"Look before you go by a window next time!" Pyro countered.

"Vhy vould I do zat? I don't generally expect _leute_ to come jumping out of vindows!"

"You should! I thought you blokes used windows more than doors around here!"

"For getting _inside_! Ve don't generally use zem for going _out_!"

"Well you should!"

"Vhy vould I do zat?"

"Because doors are for th' weak! Windows are the way o' the future!" (5)

Gambit, having had the exact same conversation with Pyro before, albeit without the funny accent, knew that it could go on for quite some time. He decided to get away while he could.

"_Excusez-moi, mon ami_, but could you tell Gambit where he can find some breakfast? He getting' hungry."

"Of course, right zis vay."

He led them to the kitchen, where they were immediately swamped by students firing off questions at a mile a minute.

"Did you really make it all the way to the end?"

"Are you going to join the X-Men?"

"Is the course really destroyed beyond recognition?"

"How did you do it?"

Gambit bowed out of the crowd. After all, it was Pyro they were interested in. He found that no one was cooking and decided to make breakfast for himself and Pyro- something he was quite used to, as the only Acolyte with cooking skills that didn't stop at the microwave.

He had barely removed the first pancake from the griddle when several noses, namely those of Pyro, Kurt, and a brunette boy Gambit later learned was called 'Iceman.' They all crowded around him.

"That smells _really_ good," the one called Iceman said. "Can you make us some too?"

Gambit looked around at the faces in the steadily growing crowd around him.

"A'right, fine. Bring m' y' plates, an' Gambit'll make you all some."

Gambit swore later on that he made breakfast for every member of the school that morning, though this was of course an exaggeration- Xavier wasn't there and Wolverine didn't eat pancakes.

After everyone had eaten, Gambit decided that it was time to go before he got roped into cooking lunch as well. Rogue walked him to the door, much to his delight.

"Ya coming back ta visit, Cajun?"

"Promise, Chere." He kissed her hand and gazed into her eyes, turning up the charm.

"Why don't you just take Xavier's offer and join? Ya spend more tahme ova here than ova there anyway, what with stalking me an' all."

"Sorry, Chere." He nodded toward Pyro, who was still arguing with Kurt on the merits of windows over doors. "Gambit still needed wid de Acolytes. When he needed no longer, he join up." He kissed her hand again. "And dat's a promise."

"Ah'm gonna hold ya to that promise, Swamp Boy."

"_Est exactement ce ce que j'ai voulu entendre, chere_." (6) He raised his voice to call Pyro. "C'mon, Pyro, time to go back before de boss send out a search party… or Sabretooth."

**(o.o.o)**

_Okay, so maybe the day wasn't that bad. I got to spend some time with mon cherie, and even though I nearly died, I learned that Pyro can take care of himself when he needs to. I also found out that no matter what she says, Rogue really does have a soft spot for me, and she really does want me to join the X-Men, and that when I finally do, I'll be welcomed for the simple fact that I know how to cook._

_I also learned that, despite all my beliefs to the contrary, John really was paying attention during all those staff lessons. Otherwise, he would have died in the first leg of that Obstacle Course of Doom._

_One more thing, I learned that Wolverine is a sadistic maniac. I will have to be very careful to never get on his bad side._

_Au revoire, mon ami, jusqu'à la prochaine fois, c'est _(7)

**(o.o.o)**

Pyro returned the diary to its hiding place rather shakily.

"I don't believe it," He said. "I'm the only reason he hasn't joined the X-Men? Cause he thinks he needs to look after him? But that's not fair. I never asked him to babysit me. I don't need him to, I can take care of myself, and he even said so!"

He crossed the hall sulkily, depressed at the thought that he was the only thing standing between Gambit and happiness. Distracted, he wandered into Piotr's room by mistake, and was about to turn and go to his own when something on the nightstand caught his eye.

It was Piotr's diary. His face split into a wide grin.

"I'll bet Pitey appreciates me!" He said happily, and settled down to read.

**(o.o.o)**

**Author's Note- There are in fact three versions of this story. They all start off the same way, with Pyro alone and bored so he reads their diaries, but the other two are crap. I made this one up as I typed it, and now I'm glad I did. There's no way my attention span would let me both write **_**and**_** type something this long.**

**Anywho, on to the explanations of the numbers through out the story.**

**(1) Disclaimer- lyrics from The White Rabbit song, by Jefferson Airline**

**(2) This is based on something that **_**actually**_** happened about twelve years ago. We were on our way to church when we happened to notice about twenty or so stray dogs, all headed in the same general direction. They weren't all together either, so it's not like it was a pack or something. We thought it was hilarious, and joked that it was the Doggy Convention. On a side not, we've noted the same occurrence several more times since that happened. Maybe dogs really do have an annual convention, **_**non**_

**(3) These are edited quotes from X-Men the Animated Series, which I prefer to Evo for the simple fact that there is more blatant Romy in it. The conversation at the door and the line about not understanding her also fall into this category.**

**(4) In the story 'The Private Life of Jamie Madrox,' by PirateKit, Pyro tells Jamie that Gambit can curse in several different languages, although for all that they know, he could be talking about dishware. This story is one of The Bubbles Fanfic Recommendations, and you should read it as soon as you finish this one.**

**(5) A joke very popular among my friends that was started when I realized that Vegeta generally doesn't use doors in **_**any**_** of my fanfics. Now I've extended this tendency to my X-Men stories.**

**(6) **_**Est exactement ce ce que j'ai voulu entendr**_**, translation- That's exactly what I wanted to hear.**

**(7) **_**Au revoire, mon ami, jusqu'à la prochaine fois, c'est,**_** translation- Goodbye, my friend, until next time, that is.**

**Oh, by the way, the next chapter will have some Romy in it too. Gambit's insatiable desire for Rogue has become as natural to the Acolytes as Sabretooth's tantrums and Magneto's tendency to fly more than he walks, even when he's just going into the next room.**

**Feedback is as always greatly appreciated, whether you're simply saying you liked or didn't like the story or if you're telling me what to keep and what to improve. Even though I reserve the right to keep things even if they are annoying, I do tend to listen well to constructive criticism. My dream is to be a successful writer, and that will never happen if I don't improve.**


	2. If You Only Had a Brain, We Wouldn't

Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy 

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. **_**'Robin Hood: Men in Tights'**_** is the property of unbelievably funny Mel Brooks, and '**_**The Wizard of Oz'**_** is the creation of L. Frank Baum.**

**A/N- This chapter looks at Piotr's diary, and I should probably go ahead and warn you that there'll be some O/C'ness in this chapter. It's nothing major, just something I've had in mind for a while that would be the first thing I would do if I ever met Pitey. Oh, and to Author376- Nope, sorry, I support Lancitty over Kiotr… Though I could probably work some in since you asked nicely… hmmm… (wanders off to plot)**

**Snap- (Hijacks author's note) Waahaaa! Not only will there be Kiotr, which is so much cooler than Lancitty, there will be Mygneto! Or, whatever it's supposed to be called.**

**Bubbles- (Tackles) There will be no Mygneto, vous singe stupide! No one who did the Squelchy with Sabretooth deserves someone as great as Magneto!**

**Snap- Are you absolutely **_**sure**_** you aren't a fangirl?**

**Bubbles- There is a difference between Fan Girling and Fangirling.**

**(o.o.o)**

//_Denotes thought//_

**(o.o.o)**

**Chapter 2- If You Only Had a Brain, We Wouldn't Be Here **

**(o.o.o)**

He crossed the hall sulkily, depressed at the thought that he was the only thing standing between Gambit and happiness. Distracted, he wandered into Piotr's room by mistake, and was about to turn and go to his own when something on the nightstand caught his eye.

It was Piotr's diary. His face split into a wide grin.

"I'll bet Pitey appreciates me!" He said happily, and settled down to read.

**(o.o.o)**

_Sometimes I wonder exactly what it was that made Magneto chose to bring Pyro into our little group. Not that I don't like him, it is only that he tends to get in the way at times. Take today for instance. It began as any other day, with Pyro prodding me in the side in order to wake me, which is part of his daily routine._

**(o.o.o)**

"All right, John, I am up, you can stop prodding me."

Pyro obeyed. "Oh good, you're finally awake!" He said cheerfully, as if he had not woken him up. "Can you do me a favor and drive me somewhere?"

Piotr shook his head and began getting dressed. "I have other plans. Why can you not drive yourself?"

Pyro crossed his arms and sulked. "Because me car's still in the shop."

"Da, I forgot."

Pyro's car had been totaled some few days before, in an incident involving, as Pyro described it, a large hairy Canadian, a tree, and Gambit.

He made his way downstairs, Pyro trailing behind them. In the living room, Gambit was lounging on the couch reading a very battered copy of _The Straight Dope_. Sabretooth was sitting in the recliner with his legs dangling over the side, filing his claws.

"Can't ya please take me, Pitey? I don't have any way to get there, otherwise."

"Can you not get Gambit to take you?"

Gambit peered over the top of his book.

"Gambit can't go anywhere, _homme en métal_, he is waiting for a call."

Pyro sat down in the remaining couch space. "Are you still waiting for that stripey Sheila to call? Give it up, mate, it's been three days already!"

Piotr rolled his eyes. Gambit had given the girl Rogue their phone number when he stayed at the mansion a few days back, and had been waiting by the phone for her to call since then.

"Where is it you want me to take you, Pyro?" Colossus asked.

Pyro grinned and dug something out of his pocket. It was a flier, colorful and vibrant, with big block letters and cluttered pictures that suggested that, like Pyro, the person who made the flier went wild when put in front of the computer. Though it was cluttered, Piotr was able to get the gist- the local theatre was holding auditions today for the upcoming production of The Wizard of Oz.

"I was gonna take me ownself to th' auditions, but then _someone_," here he looked pointedly at Gambit, "Went and totaled me car."

"Don't blame me, mon ami. Gambit was not de one to damage de car, it was dat big hairy Canadian."

"Well… ok," Pyro conceded. "I'll give you that one." He turned back to Colossus. "Please won't ya' take me, Pitey? Pretty please with a bowl of pudding on top?"

Colossus looked at the puppy look that Pyro was giving him and sighed. He could not refuse Pyro and he knew it.

"All right, Pyro, I will take you."

"Hoorah!"

Pyro dashed from the room, presumably to grab his things, and returned barely a moment later with a backpack slung over his shoulders and the flier still clutched in his hand.

"We can stop by the manor after the tryouts are over so I can tell Nighty that I got the part of the Scarecrow," he said with a smile.

At this statement, Sabretooth snorted. Even Piotr had to suppress a smile- Pyro, with his tendency to not think things through all the way, was perfect for the part of one with no brain. Gambit was laughing as well, and put his book down to join them. Pyro elbowed him.

"Decided ta join us since we're stoppin' by Mutant Manor, huh?"

Gambit lunged for his throat but missed when Pyro sidestepped, then chased him all the way to Piotr's minivan.

"Shotgun!" Pyro yelled, and jumped through the window to the passenger side seat. However, he didn't make it and ended up hanging half-in, half-out of the window. He kicked his legs, trying to get all the way in. Pitying him, Piotr grabbed one leg and tipped him the rest of the way in. By the time he made it to the driver's side, Pyro had managed to right himself and was clicking into his seatbelt. Gambit climbed much more gracefully into the backseat, and at the last second Mastermind joined them, muttering something about needing a ride into town.

Piotr waited a moment in case Sabretooth wanted to come. The feral Canadian was leaning on the doorframe watching them, because there was nothing on TV and he'd finished filing his nails. Gambit leaned out the window.

"If mah Chere calls, tell her Gambit come see her later. Can you do that, mon ami?"

"I might," Sabretooth called back. "If I remember it that is."

He sneered at this, suggesting that perhaps if Rogue _did_ actually call, he would tell her that Gambit had left to see some girl. Gambit glared, but didn't feel like pushing the matter, so he pulled his head back through the window and let it back up.

As they rode to town, Pyro twisted around in his seat to look at Mastermind.

"Say, Jason, since when do you go anywhere with us?"

Mastermind fixed Pyro with a loathing stare.

"Not that it's any of your business," he said, "but if you must know, I have some things in Bayville which require my attention."

"Where am I dropping you, Jason?" Piotr asked, guiding the van smoothly from the interstate to the main road in Bayville.

"Here's fine."

Piotr nodded and pulled the van over to the side of the road. Mastermind climbed out. He fixed Piotr with his uncomforting stare.

"There is no need for you to pick me up, metal man. I will call Lord Magneto when it is time to return home."

Piotr nodded, uncomfortable under the telepath's stare, and drove off.

"Crikey," Pyro said with a shudder. "That bloke gives me the willies. Why does the boss keep him around?"

"Because, my Australian friend, unlike us, he actually works."

It was true. For the most part, the Acolytes went about their lives business as usual. They went out, they stayed in, they read books and watched TV and ate, they trained occasionally when they felt like it, and they spent a good deal of time arguing with or about each other. Once in a while, Magneto would show up with a mission for them, and they would do it, but as to actual work (not counting their chores around the base), Mastermind was the only one who did any. So, despite the fact that he gave every single one of them, including Magneto, the willies, he stuck around.

Why he chose to, considering his meek salary, was a mystery in and of itself.

**(o.o.o)**

After they dropped Gambit at the Institute, and promised to pick him up before they left, Colossus drove the rest of the way to the theatre. When they were about a block away, Pyro made the metal man stop. Once they had, Pyro jumped into the back seat and pulled the contents out of his backpack. From what Colossus could see, they were clothes, though Piotr could not understand why he was changing into them.

Then he jumped out of the van into the sun, and he understood all too well.

Pyro was wearing a scarecrow costume. He had on a flannel orange shirt (some things don't change) under a pair of overalls far too large for him. Poking out of every available opening on the outfit was straw, and Piotr wanted to ask if it was scratching his feet, for he was barefooted. A floppy gardening hat had been placed atop his head, and more straw had been stuck into his orange-blonde hair. He had painted his face a burlap brown and put more paint around his eyes and mouth, making it seem as if his mouth had been stitched on.

Once he had adjusted the costume to his liking, he took off down the street to the theatre. The straw of his costume crackled and rattled as he walked. Piotr followed, trying desperately not to look as if he belonged with this strange person.

In the theatre, Piotr realized that he would look less out of place if he was in some kind of costume, and not having the foresight to bring one, he went for the only option left to him. He turned his skin into the metal armor that made it impossible for him to leave Magneto, and became the Neo-Tinman (Neo-Tinman is the name two other auditioners gave him, because of his clothes and woodcutter's build.)

Pyro ran over to sign up for the part he wanted to play, and Colossus sat down in the back row, hoping to avoid notice.

No such luck.

"Bonzaiiii!"

Before Piotr could react, a being that might have been Human and might have been female- it was rather hard to tell given the current situation- landed on his shoulders and wrapped a pair of legs tightly around his neck. Something clanked on his forehead, and the possibly female being leapt from his shoulders and onto the ground. He turned around to see a teenage girl with bushy auburn hair, green eyes, a cute little up-turned nose, and a short doggy tail that was currently wagging furiously.

"I'm Ace!" she said happily. He blinked.

"Um, Colossus. Um, why did you put a magnet on my head?"

For indeed she had. The item on his forehead was a cheesy refrigerator magnet that read, 'In the beginning there was darkness. Then God made a pot of coffee and got to work.' Piotr removed it from his forehead and handed it back to her.

"I couldn't resist!" She said cheerfully. "You were sitting there all metal and such and I _just couldn't resist_!" She turned her head slightly sideways. "Has anyone ever gotten their tongue stuck to you in winter?"

He just stared at her like she had sprouted gills or something, because he didn't understand the reference, but John, who had rejoined him in the commotion, grinned broadly- he got it.

"That would be wild, mate! Y'd be walkin' around with a person stuck to ya, and they'd be all, 'Hey, lemme go!' and you'd be all, 'But I can't!' and then they'd be all, 'Call the Fire Brigade!' and then they'd have to chop off the person's tongue with those axes they use to chop up more firewood!"

Pyro, it would appear, is not only clueless as to the exact job of firefighters, but he also did not appear to understand what was done during that particular scene in the movie.

Before they could get any farther than Pyro's rant, another being with white hair and blue skin tackled the dog girl from behind.

"I take my eyes off of you for two minutes and you run off to terrorize these nice, erm, people!" she called, wrestling Ace to the ground. Ace, of course, protested.

"No! I can't go yet! I have to lick him and find out if it sticks!"

"It's 112 degrees outside, even _I'm_ hot; you're not sticking to anything!"

At this revelation, Ace stopped struggling. "S' cold in here," she said sullenly.

"Ugh." The other girl gave a sigh of disgust and led her friend away. "We've things to do. Now come on before I fire you."

"But Spa-ade!" Ace whined, only to have Spade silence her with a look. She pouted and followed reluctantly.

They both stood staring at the place where the girls had been only moments ago, Piotr digesting what had just happened. Pyro was casting ever lengthening sidelong glances at Piotr's metal skin. Finally, when he could no longer resist, he leaned over and licked the metal man.

"Gack! Bleh, blimey, that tastes horrible. Y'ever wash, mate?"

**(o.o.o)**

It was almost an hour before Pyro's audition, and by that time, Gambit had joined them. He slid nonchalantly into the seat beside theirs, muttering in broken English about hairy Canadians. Colossus grinned, but Pyro ignored him. He had been going over his tryout piece until about ten minutes before, when he had fallen silent and begun staring at the door in an almost contemplative pose.

At first, Gambit had looked curiously at their oft-hyper companion, then seemed to decide he didn't really care.

After Gambit had been there for about five minutes, a voice called over the intercom.

"John Allerdyce, you're next."

Pyro got up stiffly and made his way down to the audition room. Gambit and Colossus exchanged looks and followed him.

In the room, they saw Pyro standing on the stage, waiting for the order to begin. The two girls from before, Ace and Spade, were sitting at the front seats in the audience. Spade had a pencil writing of it's own free will on a notebook in front of her. While she wrote, Ace climbed on stage and began examining him at all angles.

"I like 'is costume, Spade. He looks like he put a lot of time into it." Her tail began wagging furiously when she looked at the paint on his face. "He even got the ears uneven and one eye bigger than the other, just like it says in the book!"

"That's definitely a plus," Spade replied. She finished what she was writing and her pencil disappeared. "Ok, Acey, come down so he can perform his piece."

"Righty-ho!" She said cheerfully, and hopped down off of the stage.

John waited until she was seated before taking a deep breath and beginning his piece.

"I am a scarecrow," he said, "And I am the smartest scarecrow you will ever meet. If you will bear with me for but a few minutes, I will tell you how it is that this came to be."

Colossus was enthralled. Pyro used the stage like a pro; he told of the scarecrows adventures so well that for a moment, Piotr had to remind himself that he was watching Pyro and not the actual scarecrow.

"He gonna get de part," Gambit whispered to him. "Dere's no way anybody else do bedda dan dat."

When he'd finally finished his monologue, the two girls began conversing in loud voices about whether to give him the part. Ace, it seemed, was all for the idea, while Spade was still skeptical.

"I like 'im," Ace said happily.

"I dunno…"

"Aw, come one, he was great!"

"You only like him because he's cute. And Australian."

"And cute."

"I already said that."

"I felt the need to reiterate the point."

"_Excusez-moi, fille_," Gambit said as he and Piotr went down to the steps where the girls were talking, "But what exactly is it about Gambit's friend dat you t'ink is so wrong fo' yo' li'l play?"

"It's not that he's not good!" Spade said swiftly, catching a bit more of the Cajun's charm than he'd intended. She got woozy and sat back down. "It's just that he might be… _too_ good."

"How can you be _too_ good?" Piotr asked. "Aren't you supposed to get the best actors available?"

"Well, yes, normally," Spade conceded. "But you see, this is a community theatre. The actors here are just normal people. They're good, but not _that_ good. Someone like John here would only make them seem worse by comparison."

"Yeah," Ace added with a snort. "Not like this is Twelfth Century Fox or something."

Pyro grinned rabidly, and they could already see where this was going.

"Cause, cause if it was, there'd be men in tights."

Spade buried her face in her hands and moaned. "Great, you had to say it, didn't you?"

Pyro was delighted to find someone who threw Men in Tights references into everyday life. The two linked arms and began singing.

"We're men… we're men in tights…"

They were dancing too, with the complete choreography from the movie.

"_Dieu ont la pitié, il est Pyro en tant que fille_" Gambit said quietly, at the same time that Spade said,

"Oh your God, it's Ace in male form."(1)

They watched, somewhere between horror and fascination, as Pyro and Ace performed an impromptu rendition of the song. Spade was the first to snap out of her revelry. She rounded them.

"Get him out of here," she ordered. "It's bad enough that I have to put up with Ace always quoting that movie, I don't need _him_ to encourage her."

Pyro had just begun to sing a new song when Piotr grabbed him.

"The night is young and you're so beauti-ack! Hey!"

He struggled a bit, and Piotr tucked him under his arms. He carted the small Aussie toward the exit, and Gambit followed with a flirty wave at the director and producer.

Without Pyro to sing with, Ace had taken to quoting the movie from the beginning. The last thing Piotr heard as he left was the resounding ThudThudThud of Spade pounding her head on the wall and Ace saying,

"I am Ahsneeze, father of Ah-Choo."(2)

**(o.o.o)**

"Dose fille's were _weird_," Gambit said, once they were away from the theatre.

Piotr put Pyro down, and between the three of them they managed to get him out of his costume- a task made all the more difficult by the fact that he was trying not to lose the hay that had previously been stuffed into his clothes and hair.

"Let's go ta th' manor!" Pyro said cheerfully.

Since Gambit agreed, Piotr was outnumbered, and agreed. At the manor, Gambit went to bother Rogue, and Pyro wandered off to find Nightcrawler and presumably resume their windows-door debate. Colossus, having never actually been in the manor, was left to stand awkwardly in the front hallway, which he proceeded to do with much foot shuffling; that is, until Shadowcat walked into him.

Actually, walked _through_ him was much more accurate description of what she did. The feeling was quite unnerving, and he looked down curiously at the young girl now pulling herself through his body.

"Like, sorry," she mumbled. "I'm not used to people standing in front of the door when I walk through it."

Piotr couldn't help thinking that this girl would probably make an interesting addition to Pyro's windows/doors debate.

"I'm Kitty."

"Da, I know."

They'd met once, when Gambit had his license revoked and needed Piotr to drive him to the school so he could harass Rogue. He'd thought at the time that she was very pretty. She slapped her forehead.

"Like, duh, Kitty! I remember you now, you're Peter!"

"Piotr, actually."

"Oh, sorry." She made a face and tried to pronounce his name. "Pee-o-ter. Did I get it right?"

He shrugged. "Close enough."

She was about to say something else when a voice sounded inside their heads.

_//Kitty, could you please bring your new friend to my office?//_

"Like, sure Professor." She grabbed his hand. "C'mon, I'll take you on the express route."

She dragged him off towards the wall, and he suddenly felt the odd numbing sensation that he would later identify as going intangible. She pulled him out on the other side of the wall, and there was a yelp. Piotr only saw a flash of several people jumping out of the way before he was pulled through the next wall. One girl with a distinct Scottish lilt to her voice yelled something about honking before she phased.

The next room had only two occupants, but since said occupants were sitting very close together, Piotr got the distinct impression that they wanted to be alone, and was quite glad when Kitty pulled him into the next room, which was blessedly empty.

And then they were in an office, standing in front of a desk occupied by a bald man in a wheel chair. Piotr relaxed as the feeling returned to his body, but tensed up immediately when he felt the man scrutinizing him. He felt uncomfortable under this man's gaze, and was glad when he turned to the impromptu messenger girl.

"Thank you, Kitty, though judging by Piotr's face I'd say he would have preferred for you to use the doors like other people."

"It was a bit unnerving, da," Piotr said. He wasn't going to bother asking how the Professor had known his name. He probably really didn't want to know.

"Piotr, I spoke to your friends a few days ago, and now I would like to extend to you the same invitation to join the X-Men." His eyes twinkled. "Unless perhaps you think that we don't have enough fun? I'm sure Logan wouldn't mind remedying that."

"No thank you, Professor," Piotr replied. "I would very much like to join someday, but at the moment there is too much else that I must do. Besides," he added with a laugh, "I would be useless to you against Magneto. Metal skin, you know."

"I understand." Piotr arched an eyebrow, wondering how much the man really _did_ understand. "Nonetheless, the offer, as well as our front door, is always open to you."

"That is good to know, Professor, though if Kitty is present I doubt very much that I will need a door."

Kitty wrinkled her nose at this jab, and then grabbed his hand and led him to the door. Xavier stopped them.

"One more thing, I would like to invite you and your friends to stay for dinner."

Kitty turned to him hopefully.

"Oh, that would be like, so great! Whaddya say, Piotr?"

Colossus looked at the hopeful look on her face and smiled.

"All right, Kisa, I will stay. However, I do not speak for my comrades."

"Yes, I understand. Why don't you go ask them? You will find Gambit in the library with Rogue and Logan. Pyro is down by the pool with Kurt, discussing, if I'm reading correctly, doors and windows."

Piotr rolled his eyes and took his leave. He was all the way down the hall before he realized that he had absolutely no idea where the library was. The pool would likely be located outside, but he had no idea where the exit was and so was left looking around in the hope that a sign would appear suddenly and point him to the library.

He didn't have to wait long. Kitty poked her head through the wall beside him.

"Need help finding the library?"

"Yes, please. Though, can we take the conventional route this time?"

**(o.o.o)**

When Xavier had said that Gambit was with Rogue and Logan, Piotr had assumed that they just happened to be together. When he arrived in the library, he found that he'd been far from correct in his assumptions. Gambit was with Rogue and Logan, all right, but they weren't hanging out in the conventional sense. It was more like Gambit was trying to get Rogue to join him for a weekend in Paris, and Logan was hovering with his claws out and looking generally menacing. Gambit didn't even have the option of throwing in random French to get Logan off of his scent, because not only did Rogue _not_ speak French, but Logan very probably _did_.

They caught the tail end of the conversation as they came in.

"What y' say, Chere? We fly t' Monte Carlo, we eat nice, lie on de beach…" (3)

Logan waved his claws in Gambit's face.

"Rogue ain't goin' _nowhere_ with one of Magneto's men, Gumbo."

Gambit scowled.

"Y'know, we ain't exactly enemies no more, fuzzball."

"You're gonna be _my_ enemy soon, ya call me fuzzball again."

"You jus' name de time and de place." He grabbed a card from his pocket and charged it, just to show his point.

"Gambit! You cannot be fighting with these nice people. We are guests in their home!"

Gambit wrinkled his nose in disgust. He tossed the card into the air, and it disappeared in a small explosion.

"You're just lucky Colossus was here to stop me."

Wolverine growled.

"I don' see 'im holding ya back, Cajun. Maybe we go somewhere that _ain't_ in the house, an' see if maybe he can stop you then." The tone of his voice was mocking. Colossus could tell he was still sore about whatever Gambit had done to the obstacle course earlier that week.

"Anytime, _Minou_."(4)

Wolverine snarled and tried to tackle him, but Rogue yanked him out of the way just in time. He smirked at her.

"Gambit can' help but notice dat you save him, Chere. Maybe it mean you like me, _non_?"

He grinned suavely, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Piotr was amazed at the intensity of Gambit's one-track mind. Even with a large hairy Canadian practically at his throat, he couldn't manage to stop flirting for more than a few minutes. Piotr shook his head. Gambit might very well be on the verge of death, and he was still trying to plan a weekend away with Rogue!

"Huh, as _if_. Ah just don' wanna have ta clean up tha bloodstains when Wolverine goes Jack tha Rippa on yo' Cajun butt." She turned away with a huff. "But as far as Ah'm concerned, whatever he does to ya' outside is no less than what ya' deserve."

"Heheheh…" Wolverine cracked his knuckles. "I'm gonna enjoy wipin' the floor with you, Swamp Trash. Unless you're afraid, let's go to the Danger Room. We won't get any interruption there."

He turned and left, not even bothering to find out if Remy was following him. Gambit took Rogue's hand and kissed it.

"Don't worry, Chere, Gambit beat Wolverine den come back. We plan our weekend away den, ok?"

He winked and followed Wolverine to the Danger Room. Piotr grabbed him as he passed by.

"What you want, Colossus? Gambit just answering a challenge."

"I do not care what you do, Gambit," Colossus said. "I merely came in to tell you that we have been invited to dinner. Do you plan to stay?"

Gambit looked over his shoulder at Rogue, who had returned to her book now that she no longer had the two men to distract her. He grinned.

"Gambit got no problem wit' staying. We leave after dinner, den."

And with that, he walked out of the library.

**(o.o.o)**

Colossus didn't bother going with Gambit to see his fight with Wolverine. Instead, he asked Kitty to take him to the pool, so that he could inform Pyro of their dinner plans. He was there with Kurt, playing a one-on-one game of volleyball while they continued their discussion.

Their conversation had long since left any semblance of the original argument. From what Piotr could make out as they came up, they had ceased to talk about windows and doors and were now trying to decide on whether or not monkeys had feet or hands.

"I'm tellin' ya, my fuzzy blue mate, they are feet. When standing on two limbs, they always use the hindmost ones, same as any primate, so that would make them feet."

"But zey have _thumbs_, Pyro. That makes them hands."

"They aren't thumbs, they're opposable big toes!"

"Do you hear yourself when you talk? They are identical to their hands. If they are feet, then so are their hands!"

"Your feet look like your hands. Does that mean you eat with your feet, or that you walk on your hands?"

"Vat?" He looked at his hands, then at his feet. "Zey don't look exactly alike."

Piotr cleared his throat to get their attention. Knowing Pyro, their debate would last for some time (then switch into another completely unrelated topic), and he didn't have time. He wanted to see the rest of the mansion before dinner.

Pyro looked at Piotr, and in his distraction, let the volleyball fly past him, where it hit a blonde boy in the chest and knocked him backwards into the pool. He struggled for a minute before surfacing, and threw the ball back to them.

Several students in and around the pool began laughing at his expense, and a redhead that Colossus recognized from earlier reached out a hand to help him out. He took her hand before winking at her and yanking her into the pool after him. Yelling obscenities with a distinct Scottish accent, she shoved the blonde boy under the water, to which he of course retaliated.

Once he had resurfaced, he splashed her, but she ducked and the water hit a brunette boy. At the force of the water hitting him, the boy split into two, and both boys threw an incredible amount of water at the blonde boy. The blonde boy dropped into the water, and a second brunette boy froze the water before it had a chance to hit him.

The water sloshing around the mini-iceberg in the pool hit a blonde girl sunbathing on a float in the middle of the pool. Without even opening her eyes, she lobbed a glowing ball in the ice boy's general direction. He dodged it, and it landed between two other girls. They shrieked and ran away from the ball, which exploded in a small boom.

A tall boy with spiky orange bangs laughed at the two, and one of them shot an array of sparks in his direction. He ducked, and laughed.

By now, a simple splash fight had become a mutant free-for-all. The students were using their various powers to throw or dodge the water. One boy used fire from his hands to evaporate the water. Another boy kept freezing the water before it touched him. The boy with clones was quite literally everywhere, fighting the others and his clones.

Pyro hung back, not interested in anything that had to do with water. He pulled Piotr with him.

"So what's up, mate? It's not time to leave yet, is it?"

"No, John, it isn't. Actually, we have been invited to dinner. I thought to go ahead and tell you."

"All right! So what are you gonna do till then?"

"Kitty has agreed to show me the grounds," Piotr explained. "I am going to go now. I will see you at dinner, my friend."

"Kay, bye!" Pyro waved as Piotr followed Kitty away from the pool, then left to find some new way of amusing himself until his friends ceased throwing water around.

**(o.o.o)**

"And this is like, Kurt's room."

Kitty had taken her tour-guide job seriously, and was currently pointing out each and every room in the dorms, along with a brief description of its occupant.

"Kurt is the fuzzy blue one who argues with Pyro, da?"

"Right! Now, moving on, this is Cyclops's room. He's our 'fearless leader.' Personally, I think that sometimes he's got a stick wedged up his nether regions."

Piotr smiled at this thought- he had heard similar things from the Brotherhood, who loved to badmouth various members of the X-Men- namely, the leaders. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"Perhaps, Kitty, you should show me something other than the dorms. Like the rec room."

"Okay, like, right this way!"

The only occupants of the rec room were Storm and Beast. Storm was watching TV while Beast hung upside down from the ceiling reading a book.

"Are you, like, up for a game of pool, Piotr?" Kitty tossed a pool cue at the Russian. "I may not be as good as Rogue or Sam, but I can beat Bobby, so that's gotta count for something. Are you any good?"

"I have… played… before," Piotr answered with a secretive smile.

In truth, he had played. Gambit organized a pool tournament at least every other week. However, saying that he played well was another story entirely- though, that probably had more to do with the fact that none of the other Acolytes ever played by the rules. Gambit often charged the tip of the cue, Pyro hit any ball that got in his way, and Sabretooth just plain cheated. The winner was usually the one who cheated the most, and Piotr was too honest to cheat.

But Kitty was an X-Man. She would be honest. Perhaps now he could test his skill against someone who played fair.

**(o.o.o)**

"Not fair, Kisa," Colossus said. Kitty had made the cue intangible, allowing it to pass through the ball blocking her angle to the cue ball- a trap he had set up to force her to scratch. Beast chuckled.

"I don't think you realized when you agreed to the game that the students at the school find it perfectly acceptable to use powers while playing. In fact, they are encouraged to find creative ways to use their powers to assist them."

"You aren't surprised, are you?" Storm asked. "Surely someone who goes by the name Gambit and uses playing cards as weapons doesn't play by the rules?"

"All of my comrades cheat," Piotr explained. "I simply expected an X-Man to be honest enough not to."

"I didn't cheat," Kitty said. "It's like, totally in the rules to use your powers. Professor X even said that it was okay. And it's not like I have an unfair advantage, because you have mutant abilities too."

"I think I am beginning to understand," Piotr said. "But how am I to use metal armor to help me play pool?"

"That is for you to discover," Storm said. "Until then, you will have to rely on skill alone."

"Sucks to be you, huh, Mon Ami?" Gambit was standing in the doorway with Wolverine, who was supporting him. "But maybe you find somet'ing before our next tournament."

He looked pretty battered, but oddly satisfied. McCoy jumped up in alarm.

"Good Lord, Logan, what did you do to him?"

Wolverine grinned. "Nothin' that he didn't do right back." He transferred Gambit's arm to Beast's shoulder. "Cajun knows how to fight. Gave back everything I threw at him and then some."

Beast sighed. "Come with me to the infirmary, Remy. I will patch you up." Gambit followed, muttering about ending up there every time he visited the Institute.

Logan laughed and flopped down on the couch, propping his feet up on Storm's lap. She frowned at him and shoved his feet onto the floor.

"You could have killed the boy, Wolverine. Are you still that upset that he beat your obstacle course?"

"Oh, please, Storm, I'm over _that_. I fought him 'cause he was badmouthin' me. And I didn't have any intention of beatin' him so badly. I was just gonna rough him up a bit. He's the one who made me bring my a-game."

He started telling Storm all about their session in the Danger Room, with much gesticulating. Kitty rolled her eyes and dragged Piotr out of the room.

"Come on, let's go."

"Where to, Kisa?"

"To the kitchen. It's Rogue's turn to cook dinner, and I want to see if she'll let me help."

**(o.o.o)**

They found Rogue in the kitchen, mixing something in a large bowl and barking orders at Tabitha and Jamie. She spotted Kitty and Piotr in the doorway.

"Hand me that carton of eggs, Jamie. Kitty, if ya think you're gonna come in here and help, think again. Ah'm still recovering from tha last time someone let you near tha kitchen."

Kitty threw up her hands in surrender.

"Like, relax, Rogue. I just wanted to remind you that Piotr and his friends are here for dinner."

Rogue scowled. "Ya mean Logan didn't manage ta kill that Swamp Rat?"

"No, he like, did really well! Mr. Logan said that he had to use his a-game."

"No foolin, huh? Well, I hope he don't think he's gonna use Logan ta get ta me." She huffed and turned away in time to see Jamie and Tabby trying to sneak out. "Hey, get back here you two! You're supposed ta be helpin' me!"

Kitty and Piotr left while she was yelling at them, not willing to spend any more time around her than necessary.

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit had recovered by dinner. He sauntered into the dining room, charm radiating from every pore on his body.

_//He probably heard that it was Rogue's turn to cook dinner.//_ Piotr snorted. _//Though he could just be feeling particularly arrogant because he did well against Wolverine.//_

"Like, what's with him?" Kitty asked. "I mean, he knows he can't get anywhere with Rogue, she's like, totally untouchable!"

Piotr arched an eyebrow. "You think that Gambit is only interested in a physical relationship?"

"Isn't he?" Kitty looked shocked at the idea that someone who flirted so often would be after anything else.

Piotr shrugged. "It is hard to tell with Gambit. It is possible that he hopes to be on her good side when she gains control of her powers. It is also possible that he simply finds her a challenge, since she so often rejects him. Or maybe he is drawn to her emotionally. Gambit is a mystery when it comes to women. I will say this though, in the time that I have known him, he has never taken such interest in anyone like he has with your friend."

Kitty looked over to Gambit with new respect. "So, he may be like, in love with her?"

"Possibly."

"Whoa. Kurt's not gonna like this."

**(o.o.o)**

Dinner was an amusing affair. Piotr had long since grown accustomed to the X-Men using their powers willy-nilly all the time, and was therefore not in the least bit surprised when a plate of dinner rolls levitated past him, or when Kurt appeared beside him in a puff of smoke, grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes, and teleported back to his seat. He was unfazed when Jamie produced a clone to pass the peas, and when Storm called up a wind to blow the roast her way, he simply ducked.

Yup, a normal dinner at mutant manor.

After dinner, most of the students hung out in the rec room, trying to kill as much time as they could before Logan or Storm sent them up to their rooms. That's why most of the manor was present when the front door flew open and Magneto floated into the room in all his purple caped glory.

Logan jumped at the master of magnetism, but Magneto simply waved his hand and Logan found himself stuck to the wall. He struggled a bit, trying to get free.

"I come home from a hard day of taking over the world hoping to sit down to a nice supper cooked by my Cajun manservant, only to have that hairball I keep around for God-knows-what-reason tell me that he's at the home of my sworn adversary, as are my other two lackeys! You three have spent more time with the X-Men lately than with your own team! What do you have to say for yourself? Well?"

"Erik, how nice to see you." Xavier rolled into the room, not at all surprised to see one of his staff stuck to the wall and his enemy hovering in the front hallway. "You should have come sooner, you could have joined us for dinner."

"Ah, Charles." Magneto hovered over to him. "So is this your plan? Get friendly with my Acolytes and then steal them?"

"I have no intention of stealing your Acolytes, Magnus. I simply wish to have our pupils on friendly terms. We are not exactly enemies anymore, Erik. It seems to be working well, isn't that right, Kitty?"

Kitty jumped, startled at being pulled into the conversation.

"Yeah, like, totally! Me and Piotr have been like, hanging out all day. We're good friends now. And like, Mr. Logan is impressed with Gambit, and Pyro gets along with Kurt just like they've always been friends."

Magneto stared at her, deciphering her speech into plain English. He smiled.

"Be that as it may, what am I to do about dinner? Gambit knows to leave a note on the fridge if he's going to be gone long."

"But Boss, Gambit have no idea he gonna end up staying for dinner. It was sudden."

Magneto might have glared at them, and he might have scowled, but his helmet made it difficult to tell. Nonetheless, he turned swiftly, swishing his cape as he did.

"I take my leave of you Charles. Come along, Acolytes. We have to get home. I left Sabretooth alone and if we don't put out his milk bowl he may starve to death."

They followed him out the door, not willing to disobey. Just before the door closed, they heard a thud as a laughing Wolverine fell from the wall.

**(o.o.o)**

_Pyro told me before bed tonight that he only tried out for the play because he wanted to see if he could. It amuses me that he might put that much work into something that he was only doing out of curiosity. Ah well. I was planning to spend the day looking for my family, but spending it with my friends was just as good._

**(o.o.o)**

Pyro dropped the diary onto the dresser and darted down the hall to Sabretooth's room.

"I probably shouldn't do this. Sabby's gonna kill me when he finds out I've been anywhere near his room. But I gotta know if he blames me for anything bad about his life like Gambit and Colossus do. I don't want my buddies to think they could be happier without me!"

Sabretooth's room took some time to break into. If Magneto was paranoid about having a thief in the house, it was nothing to how Sabretooth felt. He had about eight locks, not counting the two that had come with the door. Pyro managed to pick all of them, and pushed the door open to the cleanest room in the entire base.

Pyro took even longer to find the wild man's diary. Sabretooth kept his room neat, but that didn't change the fact that he had lots of hiding places in his room. He finally found it attached to the inside of a lampshade, and settled down on the floor to read.

**(o.o.o)**

**Author's Note- Hey, whaddya know, I can write Kiotr!**

**Snap- Then you can write Mygneto, too.**

**Bubbles- No! Anyway, what did you lot think of Ace and Spade? I need to know so I can decide whether or not to use them in the sequel, where they'll have bigger parts. The story is just in the planning stages though, so I can easily write them out of it if they get a horrible reception. Next chapter is Sabretooth, and it will be up quite quickly, as I have a good deal of it written in my head already. And it's **_**much**_** funnier than this chapter.**

**(1) **_**Dieu ont la pitié, il est Pyro en tant que fill**_**, translation, God have mercy, it's Pyro as a girl.**

**(2) Quotes and lyrics from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, property of Mel Brooks and Twentieth Century Fox.**

**(3) More altered quotes from the Animated Series.**

**(4) **_**Minou**_**, translation, Pussycat**

**I would like to apologize for the fact that the part of this chapter where Xavier is talking Piotr sucks, but on the day I wrote that part, one of our dogs got hit by a car and I kind of shut down emotionally for a while. I wouldn't have even written anything that day except that I find writing to be a good way to deal with grief… and anything else, for that matter. Anyway, I'm fine now, if a bit sad.**


	3. On the Combustibility of Bleach, and Why

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy!**

**A/N- It's Sabretooth's diary this week. I've been debating constantly whether to make Pyro a part of the story, and then I remembered that I had to explain Pyro's intimate knowledge of the combustibility of cleaning products, and… voile! Oh, and the Brotherhood makes an appearance, hoorah, and I make continuous references to the fact that Sabretooth and Mystique used to be together. I've sort of developed a morbid curiosity about this that borders on disturbed obsession.**

**Anyway, I need to ask a question of my reviewers. Should I write a chapter with Mastermind? He is one of the Acolytes, after all, but I don't really know enough about him to think of something to fill a whole chapter. Besides, he doesn't seem like the type to put up with Pyro's antics like Gambit and Piotr and even Sabretooth. If enough of you want a chapter about Mastermind, I'll write one, and if you don't, I will go ahead and post the chapter about Magnus.**

**Snap- Where there will be Mygneto!**

**Bubbles- No! No Mygneto!**

**(o.o.o)**

//_Denotes thought//_

**(o.o.o)**

**Chapter 3- On the Combustibility of Bleach, and Why Sabretooth Hates Movie Night**

(o.o.o)

Sabretooth's room took some time to break into. If Magneto was paranoid about having a thief in the house, it was nothing to how Sabretooth felt. He had about eight locks, not counting the two that had come with the door. Pyro managed to pick all of them, and pushed the door open to the cleanest room in the entire base.

Pyro took even longer to find the wild man's diary. Sabretooth kept his room neat, but that didn't change the fact that he had lots of hiding places in his room. He finally found it attached to the inside of a lampshade, and settled down on the floor to read.

**(o.o.o)**

_If there are two things I hate as much as Wolverine, it's movie night and Pyro. And Saturday mornings, and shopping, which is a real pain in the butt._

**(o.o.o)**

Despite the hectic nature of the week, Saturdays mean only one thing.

Actually, depending on which Acolyte you ask, they mean many things, but to each Acolyte they mean only one thing.

For Gambit, Saturdays mean stalking Rogue. Actually, for Gambit, _every_ day means stalking Rogue. Even when they went on missions, the X-Men stopped them, and then he would just use it as another chance to stalk her.

For Colossus, Saturdays mean grocery shopping. Every on of them had their own tastes in food, and all of them being selfish, Colossus was the only one of them to buy a rounded menu that made them all happy.

For Pyro, Saturday is the only day that he voluntarily wakes up before noon. Every Saturday morning at around 4:45, he goes downstairs to the kitchen and fills a large mixing bowl with seven types of cereal (emptying the cupboard, he always says) and then drowns that cereal in so much milk and sugar that it resembles little more than a load of soggy brown stuff. This finished, he plonks down on the couch in front of the TV and watches Saturday morning cartoons until noon, when he doses off until four and runs upstairs to Mastermind's room to remind him that it's time for movie night.

For Mastermind, Saturday means locking himself in his room until four, when Pyro runs up and reminds him that it's time for movie night.

And for Sabretooth, Saturday is a day for cleaning.

He had gotten roped into being the housekeeper for the base (that would be basekeeper, though, wouldn't it?) shortly after the others arrived. They annoyed him, and he wanted them dead. Pyro, Gambit, Colossus, Pyro, Mystique (but he had a history with her, so he couldn't very well kill her, now could he? Well, yes, he could, if he wanted his salary to take a huge cut.), and Pyro had become the bane of his existence. But Magneto, being the excellent boss that he is, had decided that it would be best if his subordinates were alive. Sabretooth disagreed.

Wanting to keep the peace between his Acolytes, Magneto had suggested that Sabretooth take on a new way of getting rid of his aggressions. And, since the base was pretty much a pigsty, what with there being four men living in it, he had suggested that Sabretooth take up cleaning.

The rest was history.

That was why on that fateful Saturday morning, at around eight, Victor Creed was seen stalking downstairs with a scowl on his face and a broom slung over his shoulder like a rifle. **(1)**

He could see Pyro in the living room, waving around a spoonful of Sugar-Frosted Zombie Flakes (now with ten times the brain chunks!) and yelling something at the TV. Sabretooth couldn't tell which cartoon he was watching, because they all kind of looked the same to him, but he could tell that Pyro would be occupied for a while, giving Sabretooth a chance to do some hard-core cleaning.

He did the dishes first. They had been sitting in the sink for days, because he had been out, and no one else in the base knew how to clean dishes. He had to scrub really hard to get rid of the rust, because Magneto insisted on having metal dishes. (He also insisted on having metal doors, metal furniture, and metal bindings on the books. That man had control issues- no wonder his kids were psychos.)

The dishes finished and put away, Sabretooth decided that the floor needed a good scrubbing, so he grabbed a bottle of bleach only to discover that it was empty. He headed over to the supply closet for a refill, passing by Pyro on the way and receiving a spoonful of Fruit-Loops ™ in the side for blocking the TV.

In the supply closet, he found that he was out of bleach. In fact, he was out of quite a lot of cleaning supplies. He would have to go to the store for more.

This presented a problem for the feral Canadian. He always volunteered on Saturdays to baby-sit Pyro, because being glued to the TV or asleep made him very easy to watch. He couldn't just leave him alone, unless he wanted to come home and find the base in ruins, which meant that he would have to take him along, which was just as bad. Pyro didn't take kindly to being dragged away from his shows.

On the other hand, Sabretooth needed Pyro's car, since his bike wasn't sufficient to carry all of his supplies, and besides that, he also needed an alibi on the off chance that he ran into Wolverine, who would very likely laugh himself sick at the thought of Sabretooth cleaning.

In the end, there was only one choice.

Pyro yelped as he was picked up and carried bodily to his convertible.

"I'm missing _Spiderman_!" he yelled, kicking a bit. "He's fighting Doc Oc! He's my favorite villain, I can't miss it! Oof!" He grunted as he was dropped into the driver's seat.

"Quit your winin', Runt." He climbed into the passenger side seat. "I need cleaning supplies and you're comin' with me."

"Why do I have t' come? S'not fair!"

"Because I need your car to carry everything I'm getting. I suppose I _could_ just drive myself to the store…"

That did it. Pyro never let anyone drive his precious car if he could help it. He grumbled to himself as he dug out his keys and started the engine.

"Did ya' remember t' lock up, Sabby?"

"I told ya ta quit callin' me that. And no, I didn't lock up."

"But what if killer badgers come to try an' destroy the place like before?"

"I told you already, Runt, that was just Mastermind playin' with your head. There aren't any killer badgers around here. Just bears and the occasional mountain lion. Nothin' ol' Fuzzy Brow can't handle."

About five minutes into the ride, Pyro reached over and switched the radio on. Immediately, some song that Pyro knew the words to started playing, and he started singing along.

"Paint the town, take a bow, thank everybody…" **(2)**

Sabretooth reached over and switched the radio off, earning him a glare from Pyro.

"I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you sing, got it, Runt?"

Pyro wrinkled up his nose but said nothing. He didn't really want to get on Sabretooth's bad side- or at the very least, farther onto his bad side than he already was- and singing would probably send the cat into a mad killing rampage, and Pyro would be the first to go.

**(o.o.o)**

He pulled into the parking lot of the store a little while later and was about to run off when Sabretooth grabbed the back of his shirt, nearly choking him before he stopped trying to run.

"You're not goin' anywhere, Runt. You're gonna stay right here with me, so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't break anything that _I'll_ end up havin' t' pay for.

The young Australian stuck his tongue out at him and stalked off. He stopped a few feet away and glared impatiently. Sabretooth, to spite him, took his own sweet time making sure his list was in order.

On the way through the door, Sabretooth grabbed up a basket and shoved it into Pyro's hands. Pyro, muttering about slave drivers and horrible cat people from Mars, had no choice but to follow behind and hope that Sabretooth didn't load him up with too much stuff to carry.

**(o.o.o)**

"Let's see, should I get Pine Scent or Lemony Fresh?"

Sabretooth was trying to decide on the scent of the all purpose bathroom cleaner and Pyro was sitting on the floor counting specks in the floor tiles when Sabretooth's sharp ears picked up on a familiar voice.

"Get what you need and be quick about it. I don't have all day to baby-sit you twerps."

And then there was another voice, much nicer than the previous one.

"Logan, stop being horrible to the children. You know as well as I that we have all the time we need."

"What? You think I don't got a life outside the Institute?"

"Oh, great." Sabretooth shoved both bottles into the shopping basket. "Hey Runt, wake up, I've got a job for ya."

Pyro jumped up.

"What is it?"

"I need you to look around the store and find out how many of those X-Twerps are here."

"Can do, Sabby!" He took off before Sabretooth could yell at him for calling him Sabby again.

He scooted back onto the aisle several minutes later.

"There's twelve kids, mate, plus that bloke you're always scrappin' with an' the Sheila with the lightning bolts."

"Sabretooth…" It looked like Wolverine had sniffed him out. "I thought somethin' stunk about this place. What are you doin' here?"

"What are _you_ doin' here?"

"I asked you first."

"No, I asked _you_ first."

"No you didn't."

"Are you sure?"

"What?"

"What?"

All of this was not quite as random as it seemed. Sabretooth was just trying to distract Wolverine while Pyro moved the shopping basket, or until he could get an interruption that made Wolverine forget he was there.

"C'mon, Chere, just a little kiss. What could it hurt?"

This interruption, which sounded like it was taking place on the next aisle, was immediately followed by a shouted obscenity, a thud, and the high-pitched whine that Sabretooth and Pyro had learned to associate with Gambit's powers. The shelf of chemicals began to glow. Sabretooth, realizing that he had maybe two seconds before it exploded, grabbed Pyro and dragged him over the nearest shelf to the next aisle, leaving Wolverine to deal with it himself. (But he'd probably survive, the jerk.)

The explosion rocked the entire store, but Male Student #3 put a wall of ice around it, making it so that nothing else was damaged (which made Pyro very disappointed. He wanted the store to catch fire.) However, the distraction proved to be just what Sabretooth had been hoping for, because not only was Wolverine distracted from his foe, but now he would never know which aisle Sabretooth had been on, and, Sabretooth had also managed to get everything on his list before the shelf exploded.

_//Looks like someone up there likes me.//_

Hoping to get away before he was noticed, he shoved some money and the shopping basket into Pyro's hands and pointed him in the direction of the register, then went to where the X-Twerps were all gathered around an unconscious Gambit.

"Ah told him not to," Rogue was saying. "It's 'is own stupid fault. I just hope his powers wear off soon, cause I want him OUT of mah head."

Sabretooth was laughing at this, and would have left Gambit to the mercies of the X-Men, had it not been for the fact that Magneto, as has previously been mentioned, liked his subordinates alive; besides, he kind of owed him for the distraction.

He slung him over his shoulder, and glared at Wolverine.

"If I didn't have to baby-sit, I'd stick around to smack you up a little. As it is, I've got better things to do than look at your ugly mug."

Wolverine snarled at him, and he growled right back, earning him a laugh from Female Student #2, who, it would seem, spoke Wild Animal-Person.

"He certainly told you, eh, Mr. Logan?"

**(o.o.o)**

They got back to the base at around 11:30, and Pyro immediately sat down in front of the TV as if he'd never left.

"Everyone shut up," he said, even though no one was talking. "_Jackie Chan Adventures_ is on and I don't want to miss it." **(3)**

Sabretooth chose to ignore him. He dumped Gambit onto the chair and stalked into the kitchen to start cleaning again.

He was cleaning out the refrigerator when Colossus came in, a large bag of groceries in each hand. Sabretooth took one look at them and called into the living room,

"Pyro! Wake up Gambit and help Colossus get the groceries in!"

Pyro stuck his head into the kitchen.

"But, Sa-ab-by! Jade's about to give Dao Lon Wong the smackdown! I-"

He didn't get farther than that. Sabretooth grabbed him and tossed him through the back door.

"I said, help Colossus get the groceries in."

"You know, Victor, you did not have to do that. I have no problem carrying the groceries on my own."

"I know. I just like interrupting his cartoons."

"I knew it!" Pyro was standing in the middle of the doorway, seven bags of groceries slung over his scrawny arms. He dropped them onto the table. "How dare you interrupt my cartoon watching for your own sadistic pleasure?"

Colossus, ever the peacemaker, interrupted what promised to be a good fight. He steered Pyro back into the living room.

"Watch your cartoon, Pyro, I do not need any help. Sabretooth, go back to cleaning. I will need to put these things in the fridge soon."

"Y'know," Pyro said as he walked out, "I wouldn't 'a minded helpin' if ya'd jus' waited on a advert break."

**(o.o.o)**

As with every other Saturday, Pyro fell asleep on the couch after his shows, Piotr took out his diary and began to write, and Gambit headed upstairs to breathe heavily into Rogue's phone, which he always did when he couldn't get away to harass her in person.

Once, he'd been distracted by Pyro's yell of 'All right, I'm the best, who da man, who da man?' and didn't realize that Wolverine had been the one to answer the phone. His string of threats, mingled with curses and snarls, could be heard throughout the building, and Pyro had nearly wet himself laughing so hard.

In the quiet lull, he managed to get the base practically shining. He was sure that if he were to look, he would be able to see his reflection.

At about four, he was just finishing on the toilet when Pyro skidded into the bathroom (literally- the floor was still wet). He grabbed the sink to regain his balance.

"Whaddya want, Runt?"

"Ya gotta get ready for movie night, Mate. C'mon, go rinse off and help Gambit with the popcorn!"

Sabretooth simply rolled his eyes and took his arms out of the toilet. He turned to Pyro, but Pyro was already gone. Sabretooth smirked and listened for the telltale sounds of Pyro bugging Mastermind.

He wasn't disappointed. Several seconds later, he heard pounding as Pyro knocked on the door, muffled yells as Mastermind yelled at Pyro for disturbing him, then the thud of metal on metal as Pyro knocked the door in, and clearer yells as Mastermind yelled at Pyro for knocking his door down, and then protests as Pyro dragged him downstairs.

Sabretooth finished rinsing off and made his way downstairs. He arrived at the same time as Mastermind, who sat on the couch and sulked. Piotr was pulling the couches and chairs around the TV for prime viewing. Gambit was carrying a bowl piled high with popcorn, and Pyro was shoving movies around on the shelf, searching for the first movie they would watch. Sabretooth sat down beside Mastermind to wait.

Pyro finally straightened up and showed them the movie in his hands. It was a Sci-Fi movie called _Mystery Science Theatre 3000_. Gambit groaned.

"Are you really gonna make us watch that, Pyro?"

"Yup!"

He hit the open button on the DVD player. It didn't open, so he hit it again. Still nothing.

Sabretooth could see where the scene was going, and quite frankly, he felt that one explosion a day was enough for him. He pulled Pyro away from the stubborn bit of technology.

"Sorry, Runt, looks like we won't be watching any movies tonight. Oh well. Maybe next week." He tried not to look too happy by this, but failed miserably.

Pyro frowned, and sat on the floor to think. He thought while the others munched on popcorn and watched him.

"This is better than any movie," Gambit whispered to them after a while. "How long do you think he can keep it up?"

"I just had a thought!" Pyro exclaimed happily.

"Was it lonely, mon ami?"

"Oh, ha ha." He stuck out his tongue at the Cajun. "Anyway, my thought was this. Jason, weren't you just at the Brotherhood House a few days ago?"

"Yes, I was, but why-?"

"Did they have a working DVD player still?" He asked. "Or has that witch Sheila destroyed it?"

"Yes, I see where you are going." He scratched his chin, trying to remember. "Yes, I believe they do still have a working DVD player."

"Good!" Pyro jumped up and pointed dramatically at the door. "To the Brotherhood!"

**(o.o.o)**

The Brotherhood was sitting around eating Chinese take-out when Colossus knocked their door in.

"Oops. Heheh." He looked sheepish and put the door back once the others were in.

"Hey, what's the deal, you guys?" Blob said, standing defensively in front of his friends- and his food.

"Yeah, yo, what do you want?" Toad jumped up onto his back and looked angrily at them. "Go knock your own doors down, yo!"

"Yeahdudes, didDadsendyouhere?"

Pyro grinned at them. Wanda groaned.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good."

"We need to use your DVD player," Gambit said. "Does it work?" He started fiddling with the buttons. It opened. "Perfect!"

"Yo, what gives?" Toad asked. "Why d' ya need our DVD player?"

"Ours is broken," Pyro answered. "On movie night too. So we came here to watch our movie!"

Avalanche stepped forward angrily. "Well what if we had plans for our DVD player, did you ever think of that?"

"You'll get over it, Earthquake," Mastermind said. He sat down on the recliner. "But if you want to stop Pyro from watching a movie he wants to watch, be our guest."

"That's _Avalanche_," the boy said grumpily.

"What movie is it, yo?"

Pyro held up the DVD triumphantly. "_Mystery Science Theatre 3000_, mate."

Toad leapfrogged over Blob and grabbed the movie from Pyro.

"Dude, I love this movie, yo!" He took it out of the case and put it into the DVD tray.

He sat down on the couch and made himself comfortable, until Sabretooth grabbed him and dropped him onto the floor, taking his seat. Wanda, Blob, and Pietro took seats around the living room while Gambit made popcorn. Avalanche glared at them all.

"Are you guys really gonna just _let_ them come in and take over?" Avalanche asked angrily. "I mean, they just came in without knocking and didn't even asked if we wanted to watch a movie with them."

"Shut up, Lance," Wanda said. She used one of her hex bolts to knock him into a sitting position on the floor. "I love this movie and I haven't seen it in ages."

"Yeah, man, and it's not like they don't work for the same person as the rest of us, yo."

Toad hopped up to the back of the recliner Wanda was sitting in. She either didn't notice or didn't care, because she ignored him, although about halfway through the movie she did get tired of him because she picked him up and threw him through the far wall.

Colossus had taken a seat on the floor with Blob, a large bowl of popcorn between them, and Avalanche sat with them. Pyro was sitting on the couch between Sabretooth and Gambit, an equally large bowl of popcorn in his lap. He didn't have to share, either, because both Gambit and Colossus had eaten their fill of popcorn while watching Pyro think earlier. Pietro had run to the store (quite literally) to get soda, because the Brotherhood was all out, and he wanted to be a good host, or something.

While the previews played, Sabretooth took a look around. The last time he'd been in the boarding house was before there were any kids living there, and it had taken quite a beating since then.

The wall behind the TV had several holes in it that had been covered in two-by-fours to block out the elements. Another wall had scorch marks on it and stuck to it was a substance Sabretooth did _not_ want identified. A third wall looked as if it had been completely destroyed, then rebuilt by an amateur using second-hand materials and stolen equipment. Gambit was also looking at the wall.

"Glad t' see y' got dat fixed," he said, receiving a slime-shot from Toad, which he easily dodged.

The ceiling of the living room had several holes in it. He could see into the rooms, and was able to make out what terrific slobs the kids were. Clothes littered the floors and grime covered the walls, a Toad shaped imprint was on one wall of a relatively neat room, and as if that wasn't enough, the rubble from when these holes had been made had yet to be cleaned.

The worse part of the entire mess was that large portions of the floor looked as if they had been completely ripped up, and these portions were currently lying far from their original location- as if someone had taken them purposefully, probably for the purpose of hurting someone.

Gambit seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Sabretooth and decided to ask the question on all of their minds.

"Say, p'tites, which one of you made the holes in the walls? And the ceiling and the floor?"

Without a word they all pointed at Wanda. She looked around at them.

"What? It's not like I do it just for fun. I do it to put a little 'fear of Wanda' into you. Is that so wrong? I wouldn't have to if you all didn't insist on making me mad."

Sabretooth snorted. He'd heard that excuse before. Of course, Graydon hadn't been that destructive. Granted, that was probably because he wasn't a mutant, but if he had been a mutant, he probably wouldn't have felt the need to act out. Or maybe he would have. Sabretooth didn't know, and thinking about it made his brain hurt, so he took the easy way out and didn't think about it.

"All right, everybody shut up, the movie's starting."

Sabretooth turned to Pyro, intent on teaching him some 'fear of Sabretooth' for talking to him like that, only to realize that it wasn't Pyro who'd said it. He looked around, curious, and then realized that it had been Wanda. He decided to let it slide- not even Sabretooth was crazy enough to tell off a chick with reality-warping powers.

Especially when her dad signed his paycheck.

The movie wasn't so bad- at some points Sabretooth wanted those robots to shut up so he could watch the real movie, and it annoyed him no end that Pyro, Wanda, Toad, _and_ Mastermind seemed to have the entire movie memorized and were quick to prove it, and Pyro and Pietro seemed to be having a contest to decide who could drink the most soda, which didn't bode well for the Acolytes or the Brotherhood.

After the movie ended, the Acolytes agreed unanimously to stick around the boarding house until Pyro's sugar high wore off, so that any damage he caused would be to the house instead of the base. Somehow they ended up playing Go Fish (the only card game every one of them knew), and after convincing Pyro that a game of strip Go Fish with eight other guys and a psycho girl was not a good idea, they got to it.

Gambit began shuffling the two decks together. (Ten people time's seven cards to a hand are more cards than there are in a deck.)

"I forget, are aces high or low in dis game?" He asked. The others stared at him.

"Dude," Pietro answered, "They don't have values. You just have to get pairs."

"Pairs?!" Gambit looked shocked that a game could be so simple. "What about a flush, or a full house?"

"This isn't poker, Gambit! It's Go Fish! It's like the easiest card game in the world! Haven't you ever played?"

Gambit loomed over the white-haired speedster.

"Of course Gambit has played Go Fish!" he bellowed. "Gambit has played every card game known to Man, and a few known only to dolphins! He simply has not played Go Fish in a very long time, so forgive Gambit if he can't remember how to play!" He sat down, breathing heavily. "Now den. Who goes first?"

Playing cards with the Brotherhood _and_ the Acolytes proved to be quite the learning experience. _All_ of them (excluding Colossus) cheated.

Pietro was the worst, because he was running on caffeine high and would run around them and look at all their card before they'd even noticed. Pyro made people look away and then peeked at their hands when they did (Toad was the only one to fall for this, and oddly enough, he _kept_ falling for it.) Gambit, an experienced card shark from way back, was probably cheating, though they had no idea how. Avalanche drew two cards every time he went fishing, and would look at them before they made him put one back, which meant he got the best of the two. Toad, the dealer, kept dealing from the bottom of the deck, and Mastermind was of course reading their minds. Wanda had the biggest stack of pairs of the lot of them, so she was probably cheating as well. Blob had given up about halfway through the third round and was now sitting at the table watching them and eating a tutti-fruity ice-cream bar while he watched the rest. Sabretooth was cheating as well, but he knows that Pyro is reading his diary and isn't going to tell how.

**(o.o.o)**

Sabretooth had left a note at this point.

_Hey Runt. Scary how I always know, isn't it?_

"You're tellin' me, mate." He shuddered and went back to reading.

**(o.o.o)**

Wanda won the first game, which was, as Avalanche put it, probably for the best. Gambit wanted to start another game, but the others refused, and so he was left playing Spider at the table while the others found other ways to entertain themselves.

Except Blob and Avalanche. They both went upstairs to sleep because the Authoress is getting bored with them. There are enough characters to keep up with in this story as it is, thank you very much.

Piotr pulled out his diary and began writing in it again. Pyro was having a staring contest with a fish on the wall; Pietro was running off some of the caffeine from earlier by darting from room to room; Wanda was doing a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle across the table from Gambit's game of Spider. Toad and Sabretooth were watching _Whose Line is it Anyway_? Or rather, they were both sitting on the couch, staring at the TV, and _Whose Line?_ just happened to be on.

After a while, Sabretooth realized that Toad was staring at him.

"What do ya want?"

"You uh, you used to get it on with the boss lady, right?"

Sabretooth sighed. He knew if he hung around Mystique's charges long enough, sooner or later one of them would ask.

"I'm not exactly sure I would use the phrase 'get it on,' but yes, we did have a physical relationship once."

"Oh. Uh…" Toad looked uncomfortable. "Wwwwhyyyyy? Uh, I mean, I guess if you find blue skin a turn on, but…"

Sabretooth rolled his eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, Frog-boy, but if you must know, I beat her until she shape shifted into my kind of hot."

"Oh, I see." He still looked uncomfortable.

"And we were drunk."

"Oh, _now_ I see!"

He continued to stare, and then,

"So was it a one-time thing or- Yaaaaah!!!"

Wanda hexed him away just before he landed on the table. He changed course and sailed through the wall.

"I told, you, Toad," she said without looking up from her puzzle. "You can't go bugging people with the ability to throw you through a wall. We're running out of wood for repairs and I don't feel like stealing more."

Toad climbed through the new hole in the wall and hopped over to the chair, clutching a gash on his head.

"That hurt. I think I need stitches, yo."

Pyro laughed. "Don't be too offended, mate. Sabby _never_ talks about when he was with Mysti. We think she broke 'is heart. Yaaaaah!"

Pyro climbed threw the new Pyro shaped hole in the wall, nursing his arm. Wanda looked up from her puzzle to observe his handiwork.

"Nice," she said. "Sideways and everything."

And then she went back to her puzzle.

**(Several minutes later…)**

"Why is there a Pyro-shaped hole in the wall?"

The Acolytes plus Wanda (Blob and Avalanche were upstairs asleep and Pietro had run Toad to the hospital to get stitches in his head) all looked up as Mystique walked in.

"And why are the Acolytes in my living room?"

Pyro shrugged.

"Dunno, actually. The movie went off ages ago. We shoulda went home by now. Hey what gives with that?"

This last part was directed at Sabretooth, who just shrugged without taking his eyes off of the TV. That is, until Pyro started talking again.

"Say, Mystique, maybe y' can clear something up for us." Sabretooth's head snapped around. He growled at Pyro, who ignored him "We were just wonderin' who it was who ended it between you and Sabby here."

Sabretooth lunged at Pyro, who jumped out of the way and hid behind Mystique.

"Hey, c'mon, don't be like that mate!" He peeked around her at the cat-man. "I'm not askin' for details like Toddles was! I just want to know who it was and since you ain't talkin' I figured Mystique might!"

Mystique gave Pyro a look that suggested he would stop hiding behind her if he knew what was good for him. He moved. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought of something else and turned to Sabretooth.

"Toddles- crap, I mean, _Toad_- was asking questions?"

"Yeah. S' why I threw 'im through a wall."

He pointed at the Toad-shaped hole in the wall. She admired it.

"Huh. I though that was Wanda's handiwork."

"Nope. He's at the hospital now getting stitches." Wanda frowned at the puzzle piece in her hand. "Wait, this isn't from this puzzle."

Mystique looked from Wanda to the hole in the wall to the wild mutant in her living room.

"You put him in the _hospital_? I'm these kids' legal guardian, you know! I'm the one who has to pay their hospital bills! And Magneto and Xavier cut off my supply of Nazi gold! Where do you suggest I get the money from?"

She looked furious. Sabretooth hadn't seen her look that mad since the night she left him. He decided to cut his losses and jumped through the opposite window to freedom.

He could hear her yells all the way down the street and wondered who was catching the brunt of her anger.

**(o.o.o)**

_The fact that Mystique cares more for her money than the well being of her charges says a lot about her parenting skills. It's no wonder her kids all turned out screwed up. Of course, Graydon is the most screwed up, so I guess I don't have a whole lot of room to talk._

**(o.o.o)**

Sabretooth spent that night in a tree. It wasn't that he was afraid of Mystique, or anything, it was just that he didn't feel like listening to her yell at him. Besides, trees make great beds when you're half cat.

He woke up around three to find himself staring into a pair of crazed brown eyes covered by an orange visor. With a snarl he shoved Pyro out of the tree. He could hear the 'oof' as he hit the ground and jumped down after him.

"Why do you always insist on waking me that way?"

Pyro shrugged. "I dunno. Just seems like fun, I guess."

Sabretooth scowled. "What do you want?"

"It's time to go home. The others asked me to find you and ask if you were comin' with us."

"I'm just gonna stick around here for a while. I'll come home later."

"Okay then." He turned and started jogging back to the van. "Bye, Sabby!"

"Quit callin' me Sabby!" he yelled, but Pyro merely waved. Sabretooth climbed back up into the tree. "I should maul him for that."

And he should. He had told Pyro a dozen times today alone to stop calling him Sabby. If he still did so now, he _deserved_ to be mauled. So why wasn't he? Why was he sitting in a tree instead of putting some 'fear of Sabretooth' into the boy?

It was because he was Pyro, and somehow, beyond all logic and reason, Sabretooth had become attached to him. He _liked_ him, because he kept things from getting too mundane, and against all odds, had managed to survive every cat-joke he'd ever made. No one else had ever survived to make a second cat-joke, and Pyro was reportedly writing a book of them.

This, of course, meant only one thing.

Pyro would have to go.

**(o.o.o)**

Sabretooth decided to walk home that night (morning, actually, because it was around five when he started walking) in order to clear his head. He had decided not to kill Pyro for two reasons. One, Magneto, as has been stated numerous times in this chapter, liked his subordinates alive, and always docked Sabretooth's pay for killing them. And two, without Pyro, the energy that Gambit and Colossus directed into baby-sitting him would have to be let out some other way, and this would of course cause it to be directed to him.

When he finally arrived home, he stalked into the kitchen, and who should be the first person he saw? Pyro, of course. The fire-wielder was sitting at the table in a white under-shirt and orange boxers, eating from a large bowl rice krispies © with a big pile of sugar on top.

Sabretooth snorted.

_//All that sugar makes me glad that it's Gambit's turn to baby-sit.//_

He passed by Gambit on the stairs. The Cajun was rubbing his eyes blearily and groaned when he spotted Pyro's breakfast. Sabretooth smirked.

_//Good luck, Cajun. You're gonna need it.//_

**(o.o.o)**

_I haven't gone soft in my old age, I've just started thinking a bit more rationally before killing someone. Some people might be better off dead, but in some cases, it's better to leave them alive anyway. Also, because I know you're reading this, Pyro, don't think that because I let you off this time means I always will. You're still treading on thin ice._

**(o.o.o)**

"Ha! Comin' from Sabby, that was practically a compliment! Nice to know he likes me."

Pyro didn't bother putting the room back the way he found it. Sabretooth would smell his scent all over it and anyway, he seemed to know that Pyro would read his diary and wouldn't be surprised anyway.

John stepped out into the hall and looked at the remaining two doors. One belonged to Magneto, and the other to Mastermind. The next choice was obviously Mastermind, but the psychic had gotten his security updated since the last movie night, and Pyro still hadn't learned the combination for shutting it off. That would mean he'd have to crack the lock the old fashioned way, and Gambit was way better at that than him.

Maybe he should just skip over to Magneto's room.

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- Like I said, Mastermind is your call. If you think I should do on of him, I will. **

**On a slightly related note, so far it looks like Ace and Spade will be featured in the sequel, because I've got a total of… one vote, and that's for. **

**I would also like to point out that while I tried to keep Sab's in character, this is a **_**diary**_**, and so thoughts and feelings he doesn't normally express were thus thrown in.**

**And yeah, I do believe that both Wanda **_**and**_** Mastermind are the type to watch MST3K so many times that they memorize it. **

**Snap- I can't believe you. You refuse to write Mystique with Magneto and yet you'll write her with **_**Sabretooth?**_

**Bubbles- I didn't **_**write**_** her with Sabretooth, I made reference to a canonical pairing. Which brings me to my next point, there are **_**no**_** Mystique/Sabretooth fics on ffn, and that bugs me, because I've developed a sort of morbid curiosity bordering on deranged obsession for it. I figure if I can read just one **_**good**_** story about them, it'll snap me out of it and I can go back to the way things were. So, if you know a good one, recommend it to me so I can get this out of my head.**

**(1) This image of Sabretooth holding the mop cracks me up. Someone draw it for me and send it to me, and you'll get a cameo in the sequel. If lots of people do, there'll be lots of cameos! (And I can do that because of the nature of the sequel.)**

**(2) Lyrics from **_**Then the Morning Comes**_**, by Smash Mouth**

**(3) It has been a very long time since I got up on a Saturday morning early enough to watch cartoons. These are the ones **_**I**_** used to watch.**


	4. Interlude: The Story Thus Far

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy!**

**A/N- This is just an interlude before I move on to the next three chapters. I decided to give the boys a bit of a break. They are 'off camera' here, so to speak. Since it is an interlude, you may skip it if you wish, though obviously I wish you wouldn't.**

**(o.o.o)**

**Interlude- The Story Thus Far**

**(o.o.o)**

"What to type, what to type?"

Bubbles was sitting in front of her computer, staring far to close at it as if willing the story to appear on its own. It did not, because though Bubbles is a multi-talented individual (she can watch TV, type, and talk on the phone _at the same time_), she does not have the ability to make a story appear on a computer screen without her help, though that would be very very cool.

Snap was sitting in her corner of Bubbles' brain, watching her boss stare at the screen. After a while, she grew tired of the silence, which till now had only been broken by their ongoing argument about putting Mygneto in the story. She decided to make a suggestion as to what Bubbles might do that _wouldn't_ get shot down immediately.

"Why don't you go _ask them_ for an idea?"

Bubbles stopped staring and adopted a manic glint in her eye.

"That's brilliant, Snap! I knew you had to be good for something!"

She ran over to the phone, which had the unique ability to call between continuums, and dialed the Acolyte's number.

"They're bound to have at least _one_ suggestion. Hi, Magneto? Yeah, me again. I'm coming over in a few minutes. Be ready."

(o.o.o)

Magneto and his Acolytes were sitting around in a loungeroomish room in the base. They were all feeling rather drained, with the possible exception of Magneto, who'd had very little page time so far. Gambit was putting a band-aid on his finger, which had recently suffered from a paper cut.

"Have you _hommes_ noticed that I keep getting hurt in this story?"

Piotr double-checked the chapters on the laptop in front of him.

"You do seem to be suffering more than the usual number of injuries, Gambit."

"Yeah, but why?"

"Hmm." He thought for a minute. "There is a large amount of Romy in the story. Perhaps she is trying to even this out by having you get hurt."

"Well it's annoying." He finished putting the bandage on. "And Rogue isn't even around in this interlude so why am I getting hurt now?"

They continued their conversation in this vein for some time, with occasional input from Sabretooth. At one point, the phone rang, and Magneto floated out to answer it. After a while, they seemed to notice that Pyro was being very quiet. They all looked over to his chair, where he was furiously scribbling in a book. They exchanged curious looks and gathered around him.

"What' cha writin', mon ami?" Gambit asked. Pyro looked up and frantically stuffed the book up the front of his 'Feel the Schwartz' t-shirt.

"Nothin' important."

"Oh, really?" The three of them looked at each other knowingly. "Are you sure that it isn't… your _diary_?"

"No…"

He backed away, clutching his diary to his chest. The others advanced on him, and Gambit tackled him to the floor. He sat on his chest and began to tickle him into submission.

Pyro wriggled and squirmed, trying to escape, and after a while he dropped the diary. Sabretooth pounced and grabbed it before Pyro realized that it was gone. He opened it and held it above Pyro's head. The others held Pyro down so that Sabretooth could read without distraction.

"Aw, come on, mates, don' be like that!"

"But Pyro, dis whole story is about you reading _our_ diaries. Why shouldn' we read yours?"

"Be_cause_."

"Not a good enough reason, Runt." Sabretooth made a great show of opening the book to the page Pyro was just writing on and began to read out loud.

"Dear Diary. I am sitting in the lounge with the guys. Gambit is complaining about getting hurt in every chapter. The others are trying to figure out why. Magneto just left to answer the phone. I am writing all of their actions in my diary." Sabretooth looked at Pyro in disgust. "I thought you were a writer. This is horrible!"

"Well, gimme a break, mate. I'm no good at writing my own feelings." He snatched the diary from Sabretooth's hand. "Why'd ya think I didn't want ya to read it?"

The others rolled their eyes at him. Magneto floated in.

"Everyone get ready. That was the authoress. She'll be here in a few minutes."

They all did a harried straightening of the lounge to the tune of '_The Flight of the Bumblebee'. _Pyro muttered something about putting his diary up and ran upstairs. Once in his room, he put it in a drawer alongside an identical book. He laughed.

"I knew that getting a duplicate diary would be a good idea."

He headed back downstairs to the lounge room, laughing to himself about how brilliant he was. The others were waiting, and no sooner had he arrived than the door opened. A young woman with short black and purple hair entered, riding atop a large bubble.

"Hello, everyone!" She said cheerfully. "Enjoying the story thus far?"

There was a general murmur of consent. She floated over to a chair, where her bubble popped and she fell lightly into a sitting position.

"We are ready to move on to the next chapter, Miss Bubbles," Magneto said.

"Good. But first I thought I'd get your reactions." She held up her hand, palm-up, and a bubble appeared with a notebook and pencil inside. The pencil stood poised on the notebook. "Do you have any requests for the next three chapters?"

"I want more page-time," Magneto said instantly. "I've gotten one scene so far, and in that one I was a bit of a jerk. I thought you said by this point we were on friendly terms with the X-Men?"

"Actually," Bubbles said, the pencil scribbling furiously of its own free will in its bubble. "I said that you were sort-of allies. Still, I can see where you're coming from. I'll see what I can do. Gambit?"

"I want to stop ending up in the infirmary."

"Aw, but that's so much fun!" The pencil stopped scribbling. She looked at it and nodded. It resumed its writing. "I'll think about it. Piotr?"

"I have no complaints about my part in the story. Actually, I seem to have a very small part in the story."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Pitey. It's only that you're so nice and I like conflict. But I promise, you'll get a bigger part in the next chapter."

"I got a request," Sabretooth said. "I wanna fight Wolverine."

"Now that, I can do. Mastermind?"

"I don't like that you are thinking of writing me out. It isn't fair."

"Well, I've already decided to give you a chapter, so there. Nya." She stuck her tongue out. He sighed at her immaturity.

"And that just leaves… Pyro. Do _you_ have any requests?"

"I wanna see some Mygneto. A scene, a hint, or even just imply it."

Bubbles' countenance changed immediately from cheerful to angry.

"You just wasted your request on the one thing I will not consider." He looked frightened. She smiled. "But, you're cute, so I forgive you."

The bubble beside her popped, and the contents vanished into thin air. She stood, her trench coat swooshing enough to rival Magneto's cape.

"I'm gonna go write the next chapter. If you lot have any questions, that's too bad, cause I'm not giving out my number to you."

She walked out the same we she had come in, standing on a bubble and acting as if she owned the place.

"So mates," Pyro said once she was gone. "Who wants to guess how long it'll be before Gambit gets beat up?"

**(o.o.o)**

Bubbles was once again typing furiously at her computer. Snap watched from her corner of her brain, satisfied that she had proven herself valuable.

"So, I guess you liked my idea after all? Gonna listen to their requests?"

"Hm?" Bubbles stopped typing. "Maybe. I dunno really. I just got a really good idea from my phone conversation with Magneto."

She went back to typing, and Snap began reading over her shoulder.

"Are you kidding me?"

"What? No one _else_ has thought of it."

"Yeah, and with good reason. What are you thinking?"

"That Magneto is a good daddy and deserves the chance to prove it."

"And yet you still won't write Mygneto." Snap shook her head. "You know, sometimes I think you do that just to spite me."

Bubbles shrugged. "Yeah, ok, let's go with that one."

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- Like I said, just a brief interlude. I really was having a bit of writer's block a few days ago, and then when I was looking for a Mygneto story to get Snap to shut up I thought of an idea. Anyway, Magneto's diary will be next chapter, and then I may or may not do Mastermind's after that- right now the opinion of the reviewers is more or less even (hinthint)- and so it all depends on if I can come up with anything.**

**As always, reviews are appreciated because they contribute to my narcissism, and I maintain that is the best way to get on my good side.**


	5. Wanted: Two Well Behaved Children

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy! **

**A/N- Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Magneto's diary now! Unlike the others, Pyro's involvement with this chapter is minimum. Anyway, the Nazi gold mentioned in this story is a reference to the newest fic on The Bubbles Fanfic Recommendations, _Ask the Brotherhood_ by Avatarjk137. You should go read it; it's hilarious.**

**Snap- (obvious silence.) **

**Bubbles- And Snap isn't speaking to me because I refuse to write Mygneto. Actually, I could get used to this.**

**Snap- (Sticks out her tongue.)**

**Bubbles- While I'm on the subject, I want to go ahead and say that Mystique is only in Mag's office for cake, and just cake, and nothing _but_ cake.**

**Snap- I hate you.**

**Bubbles- Thought you weren't speaking to me.**

**(o.o.o)**

//_Denotes thought//_

**(o.o.o)**

**Chapter 4- Wanted: Two Well Behaved Children**

**(o.o.o)**

John stepped out into the hall and looked at the remaining two doors. One belonged to Magneto, and the other to Mastermind. The next choice was obviously Mastermind, but the psychic had gotten his security updated since the last movie night, and Pyro still hadn't learned the combination for shutting it off. That would mean he'd have to crack the lock the old fashioned way, and Gambit was way better at that than him.

Maybe he should just skip over to Magneto's room.

Magneto's room proved to be hard to break into. It was large and steel, and if he had to guess he'd say it was about ten inches thick.

"Blimey, Mags is paranoid."

He dug a paperclip out of his pocket and began picking the lock. After several minutes of this he heard the familiar click that meant the lock had opened. He pushed the door in and stepped tentatively into the room. He had never been in Magneto's room before, and he was a bit nervous.

He looked around. Everything in Magneto's room was metal.

"Man, Mags has serious control issues. Now where's his diary?"

He found the diary in the desk and settled down on the metal bed to read. But, the metal bed was uncomfortable, so he went down the hall to his own room and sat in his orange beanbag chair instead.

**(o.o.o)**

_I have decided that since I was such a failure as a parent to my own children, I will start over with someone else's._

**(o.o.o)**

Magneto paced around in his office. Mystique was sitting at his desk, watching him pace and eating a slice of better-than-sex cake that Xavier had sent over as a belated birthday cake. Very late, actually, since his birthday was two and a half months ago.

Oh, well, it was good cake, at least, which was why Mystique kept visiting.

"Magnus, I still don't understand. You dumped one in an insane asylum and left the other to virtually take care of himself. It's no wonder they hate you."

"Yes, but I've been trying to build a relationship with them now. All of that is in the past."

Mystique sighed and took another bite of cake.

"I don't know what Xavier means. This cake is good, but it's not better than sex."

Magneto quirked an eyebrow at her. "Well, _I_ know that, and _you_ know that, but between losing his hair and losing his ability to walk, Xavier's sex life has been decidedly lacking."

"I don't know; I've always been rather attracted to bald men."

"Really?" His curiosity had been peaked. "Would you do him? If he asked, I mean."

"Maybe." She took another bite and savored it. "Mmmm, better than the Count, not as good as Sabretooth."

"I didn't need to know that." He stopped pacing. "Maybe I could build a parent/child relationship with some other kids. Like you did with Rogue."

"I… Which kids?"

"I hadn't thought about that part. What about those kids at the boarding house? One or two of those would probably be willing to start a parent/child relationship with me. Any suggestions?"

"Hmm…" She took a bite of cake. "Todd might give it a go; anything to get on your good side for when, as he says, Wanda comes around and realizes that he's the man of her dreams."

"Todd? The smelly one?"

"If you don't like Todd, you could try Freddy. He's a good kid, and would be willing to give anyone a chance."

"He's the fat one, isn't he?"

"Well, yes, but he's very strong. If not him, then why not give Lance a shot? He has good leadership skills; he'd make great heir, and he'd be willing to do it simply to tick off Pietro."

"Maybe. Who else is there?"

"Pietro and Wanda."

"Are you sure? I thought there were a few more girls."

"There was Rogue, but she left. And then Tabitha, but she left too. Wanda would probably leave if she had somewhere to go that wasn't Xavier's." She paused. "Tabitha still visits quite often. I'm sure she wouldn't mind making you a surrogate father if she thought it would get her some of your Nazi gold."

"Who told her I have Nazi gold?"

"No one. But you could use it as bribery to get her to be your surrogate daughter." She took another bite. "Nope. I was wrong. _Definitely_ better than Sabretooth."

"You disturb me, Mystique. I'm going to go give that Lance boy a call. How do I contact Tabitha?"

"She lives at the Institute. Call Lance first, though. She may be over there."

**(o.o.o)**

Magneto floated dramatically into the living room. The entrance was completely wasted; there was no one present to witness it. He started to float the phone over to himself only to realize it wasn't on the charger. Sighing, he floated into the rec room. Pyro was present, along with Kurt. They were playing _Baldur's Gate._

"Pyro, what is Mystique's young spawn doing in our rec room?"

"Playing _Baldur's Gate_," he answered without taking his eyes off of the screen.

Magneto rolled his eyes. "I can see that, Pyro, but _why_ is he playing _Baldur's Gate_ in our rec room?"

"Because Sam took over the rec room at the school. So I came here to play."

"I guess that makes sense. By the way, where's the phone?"

Pyro reached under the beanbag chair he was seated on. He took out the phone and tossed it over their heads at his boss- still without taking his eyes off of the screen.

Magneto caught the phone with his powers. He dialed the number to the boarding house and floated out of the room while it rang. He called over his shoulder,

"Oh, and Kurt? Your mother's in my office. I'm sure she'd love to see you."

After about fifty rings (ok, twelve, but it felt like fifty), someone finally answered the phone.

"Yo?"

"Yo? Is that any way to answer a phone? No it isn't. You're supposed to say where you are and who is speaking."

"Hey, yo, you called me. You should already know where I am."

"But what if I'd gotten the wrong number? How would I know? I might have started talking and it wouldn't have even been the person I called."

"Was it a wrong number, yo?"

"I don't know yet. You still haven't told me where you're at."

There was a disgruntled sigh on the other end, as if the person were missing _Coupling _or something.

"Fine. This is the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House. You are speaking to Todd Tolensky. May I ask who is calling?"

"That's much better, Todd, although I should warn you that it is a very bad idea to give out your real name over the phone. I might use the information to harm your loved ones."

"Who is this, yo?!"

"It is Magneto, you slimy little wart-monger. You know, your _boss_."

"Oh, heheh. Hey Boss-man. Hang on, I'll give Pietro the phone."

"Don't bother, I'm not calling for Pietro. I'm calling for Lance."

"Why?"

"As if it's any of your business. Just give him the phone."

"In a minute. Say, listen, you're Wanda's pops, right?"

"That's what her mother told me."

"What?"

"Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering if you could maybe give me some advice on how to get on her good side."

"Don't lock her in an asylum and then wipe her memory of it?"

"Well I meant _besides_ the obvious."

"I don't know if you've noticed or not, flytrap, but I'm not exactly an expert on Wanda's affections. Now give the phone to Lance, before I come over there and rip your tongue out."

"All right, fine, no need to get violent, yo. Yo! Lance! Phone!"

Magneto dug around in his ear for a moment.

"You know, Todd, it is considered good phone etiquette to take the phone away from your mouth before you call someone to the phone. Actually, it's considered good etiquette to simply take the phone to them."

"Hey, shut up, yo! Not like I tell _you_ how to act on the phone. Here Lance. It's Magneto."

"All right." There was a shuffling as the two exchanged phones. "Pietro's not here," was the first thing he said.

"Why do you children always assume that I am calling for Pietro?"

"Because he's your kid? Wanda's not here either."

"I'm not calling for Wanda. I'm calling for you."

"Oh?"

"I'll get straight to the point. How would you like to be my new son?"

"What?" There was a shocked silence, then laughter. "Oh, I get it. Funny, Mystique, but I'm not falling for the Magneto impression again. Get a knew one, that's getting old."

"It's not a- Mystique impersonates me? Oh never mind, I'll ask later. Listen, this isn't a joke. I want you to be my new son. While we're on the subject, is Tabitha there?"

"No. Um…" There was a long silence. "Why do you need a new son? Pietro might have his problems, but he's a good enough guy. And Wanda's cool too, as long as you aren't Todd or you didn't lock her in an asylum."

"Yes, but you see, I _did_ lock her in an asylum, thereby missing my window for having her as a good daughter. And Pietro is just screwed up. So I've decided that since I did such a bad job with my own kids, I'd try again with someone else's."

"That's messed up, man."

"Just think about it, ok? I'm going to give Tabitha a call."

Magneto hung up the phone, wondering what Mystique had been doing when she was suppose to be teaching them manners, and then decided that he didn't want to know. He dialed the number to the institute.

"Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants, Rahne speaking."

"Ah, finally, someone who knows how to answer a phone. Is Tabitha there?"

"Hold on, I'll go get her. May I ask who's calling?"

"You may. It's Magneto."

"All right, I found her. Tabitha, phone for you."

"Thanks, Wolfy. Hello?"

"Hello, Tabitha. This is Magneto."

"Oh. Hi. Hey listen, about those cherry bombs…"

"That was you?"

"Um… no? What do you want then?"

"How would you like to be my new daughter?"

There was a thud on the other end of the line. Magneto waited, expecting an answer. None came.

"Hello? Tabitha?" Nothing. "Tabby?"

"Hello?"

"Tabby?"

"No, Jean."

"I see. Where is Tabitha?"

"She's passed out on the floor." There was a long silence, and Magneto got the distinct impression that she was reading someone's mind. "You know, if you want to have better children, you could just try apologizing and meaning it."

"You know, Mary, I didn't ask you. And it's not nice to read people's minds without permission."

"Mary? My name isn't Mary; it's Jean."

"Really? I heard someone describe someone named Mary Sue once and I thought it was you. You mean Jean isn't just your code name?"

"What kind of code name is Jean?"

"Well admittedly it isn't very impressive, but then neither is Professor X, and he's the one who usually names you people."

"Huh?"

"I mean, Professor X doesn't say anything about who he is or what powers he has."

"Huh?"

"Take Pyro for example. Right when you hear his name, you know it has something to do with fire. And Colossus, you can tell he's very large. And me. Magneto just kind of sums it up."

"Huh?"

"Oh, never mind. Just find a girl to act as my replacement daughter, since Tabitha is out cold anyway."

"Um, well… Here's Rogue!" There was a shuffle, and it sounded as if the phone was thrust into Rogue's hands.

"What the -! Hello?"

"Hello Rogue."

"Oh. It's you. What do ya want?"

"Well, don't go sounding overjoyed to hear me. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to be my new daughter."

"Are you crazy?! No Ah don' wanna be your new daughtah! Fo' one thing, Ah saw how ya treated tha last one, and besides that, Ah've got enough crazy relatives between Kurt and Mystique. Ah don't need you and yo' weird kids tacked on top of that."

"You wouldn't be related to the kids. Just me. And Lance, if he agrees to be my new son."

"You _are_ crazy."

There was a click as she hung up. Magneto stared curiously at the phone.

"Doesn't anyone say goodbye anymore?"

**(o.o.o)**

Magneto had decided to try another tactic. Upon realizing that Pietro and Wanda were not home, he had decided to go to the boarding house and talk to Lance in person.

He floated over to the door and used his powers to bang the knocker. After several minutes, Todd opened the door. When he saw that it was Magneto, he cowered.

"I'm sorry, yo, I didn't mean it! Don't rip my tongue out!"

Magneto rolled his eyes and floated past Todd into the house as if he owned the place- because actually, he did!

Lance was sitting on the couch with a girl and watching _Coupling_. Jeff was on the screen explaining about the 'Captain Subtext.' When the girl spotted Magneto, she jumped about three feet into the air. **(1)**

"Like, Lance, it's your boss!"

Lance pulled her back onto the couch beside him.

"Relax, Kitty, he's just here to make me his replacement son."

"Really? You should like, totally do it!"

"I should?"

"Listen to her, son."

"I'm not your son." He turned back to Kitty. "Why should I?"

"Because except for the whole, like, committing Wanda thing, he like, did a really good job as a dad. Besides, he wants you as a son, which is more than you can say for your parents."

"She's got a point son. I like her." He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Kitty. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders."

This statement constituted a snort from Todd, which in turn constituted a glare from Kitty.

"Ok, fine, I'll do it," Lance agreed. "But only on a trial basis, I mean, it's not necessarily permanent."

"I can understand that. I completely support that. Now how about bonding?"

"Some other time. I'm kind of on a date…"

"Unchaperoned?"

"Well, Todd's here…"

"He's no good as a chaperone. You could lock him in closet. He's small and flimsy; he'd never put up a fight."

"Hey, I'm right here, yo! And how come I'm not your replacement son?"

"Dude, if Magneto was your dad, then it would be incest when you hit on Wanda."

"Exactly. That's why." Magneto breathed a sigh of relief. "So…"

"So…"

Kitty got up. "Why don't I like, leave? It seems like you two have some catching up to do."

She phased through the door. Lance watched her leave in awe and then shook his head.

"You haven't been my dad for five minutes and already you're ruining my love life."

"Aren't I supposed to?"

"No!"

"Well, uh, so…"

"So…"

They stood in awkward silence for some time, not sure what to do with their new father/son relationship. Magneto spoke first.

"We could… go to a movie."

"Nah, movies are no good for bonding. That's where you take someone you're pretending to bond with but you don't want to talk to."

"I see."

"We could go get a burger," Lance suggested.

"I don't have much of a stomach for fast food."

"Right…"

"I could take you to a ball game," Magneto said after another long silence.

"Nah, no one good's playing."

"Oh."

There followed another awkward silence. After a while, Lance grinned.

"I know. We can go to the zoo!"

"The zoo?"

"Yeah, I love the zoo, and I haven't been in ages! My own parents never took me!"

"Well then. To the zoo it is."

"All right! You're the best, _Dad_."

He took off for the door, but Magneto used the steel in the toes of his boots to stop him in his tracks. He wobbled a bit, trying to regain his balance.

"Hey, what gives?"

"You can't leave without a coat."

"But it's a hundred twenty degrees out there!"

"Just leave one in the car just in case. It might turn off cold. Better safe than sorry, you know." He used his powers to turn the boy around and direct him upstairs.

"All right, I'm going, just gimme back my legs, okay?"

Magneto released his hold on Lance's shoes and waited for him to come back downstairs. When he did, he had a leather jacket draped over one arm. He walked grumpily to the door, no doubt annoyed at having to get a coat before he left.

He opened the door and looked out.

"Magneto- Dad- whatever I'm callin' you now… Is that _your_ car?"

Magneto hovered out after him. "You like it?"

Lance ran over and slid over the hood to the other side. He began examining it at every angle.

"Like it? This has gotta be the sweetest car I've ever seen! It's better than Pyro's even! Where in the world did you get it?"

"I had it custom made a few weeks ago during the fast car phase of my mid-life crisis. I know a guy in Stockholm who owed me a favor."

Lance continued to admire the car. Magneto floated off to the side, basking in the reflected glory of his new son's admiration. He knew he'd picked well when he chose Lance. Pietro hadn't appreciated the car at all. He just went on and on about how he could outrun it. But Lance seemed to realize that there was more to a car than speed.

"Can I drive?"

"Certainly." Magneto levitated the keys out of his pocket and over to the teen's waiting hands. "But be gentle. She's my baby, you know."

"Oh, man, this is gonna be so cool!" He hopped over the door into the convertible's front seat and turned the engine on.

Magneto hovered into the passenger's seat and watched with bated breath as Lance familiarized himself with the car.

He had to give the boy credit. Whereas most guys his age, upon being put behind the wheel of a custom car like that one, would have tried to see exactly how fast it could go, Lance drove only about fifteen miles over the limit. Magneto was impressed- most teens didn't even know there was such thing as a speed limit.

"You're doing very well, Lance," he complimented as they pulled off the main highway onto the back road that led to the zoo.

"Yeah, well, a car like this ya gotta take care of." He pulled into the parking lot. "It's just like with a woman; if you don't take care of her, you won't have her for long."

They parked, and Magneto floated them both out of the car. He levitated the keys to his pocket before putting the top up and locking the door.

"I knew I chose well when I made you my son. Come. Let us go inside."

**(o.o.o)**

They managed to get lost only five minutes into their trip. Magneto looked around.

"How did we get to the monkey house? I thought we were going in the opposite direction."

"Yeah, this place is kind of hard to navigate." Lance checked the large map in front of them. There was an arrow pointing to the monkey house that said 'you are here.' "Kinda scary how they always know, isn't it?" He asked in all seriousness.

It took Magneto a few minutes to realize that he was joking- he hoped he was anyway. He swooshed his cape a little and wished that he'd had the foresight to where civilian clothes. Lance had been right; it _was_ hot, and he was beginning to sweat in his spandex. Lance had it lucky. He was only wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals (he had switched them out for his boots when he got his coat) and had pulled his hair out of his eyes with a bandanna. But Magneto was _hot_.

It was probably air conditioned in the monkey house though.

"Well as long as we're here we might as well look."

"All right then."

Lance followed him into the monkey house. Halfway through he caught site of the beads of sweat on Magneto's face and laughed.

"Pretty hot out here, isn't it?"

"_Pretty hot out here, isn't it?"_ Magneto mocked.

Inside the money house, Lance pressed his face against the glass to watch the monkeys- right next to a sign that read 'do not touch glass.' One particular monkey was watching him right back, mimicking his every move. Magneto hovered around, looking at some of the spider monkeys. They were playing some sort of game that involved a lot of jumping. They reminded him of Pyro, actually.

"Hey, Boss, I mean Dad! C'mere and look at this!"

Magneto took his eyes off of the spider monkeys and hovered over to the window Lance was pressed against.

"He looks like Mastermind, doesn't he?"

"He does, actually." They stared for a minute. "You know, I was always teasing when I said that he looks like a monkey, but now…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

**(o.o.o)**

"So Gambit routinely goes to the Institute just for the purpose of harassing Rogue?"

"Yes. Apparently he's taken a shine to 'er. She seems to really like him too; I mean, she won't admit it, cause she's Rogue and all, but he's been stalking her for a while now, and he's not dead yet, so there's gotta be some good feelings in there somewhere."

"I see."

They were at the café outside the reptile house. Lance was filling his 'father' in on all of the gossip that Kitty passed onto him from the mansion. Apparently, Kitty was a worse gossipmonger than Mystique. Speaking of Mystique, he would have to compare notes with her later on.

"And Pyro's been hanging out with Nightcrawler a lot lately."

"Actually, I already knew that. He was at the base this morning playing video games with Pyro."

"Really? Who was winning?"

"I don't know, I wasn't asking." He tossed the remains of his sandwich to a nearby stray, which gobbled it up hungrily and gave him a look begging for more. "Sorry, that's all." He held up his empty hands to prove it.

"I'm done," Lance said. He tossed his sandwich to the dog and stood up. "Let's go to the Safari Zone; I wanna look at the giraffes."

**(o.o.o)**

Their big zoo adventure culminated in Lance falling over the railing of the bear cage and almost getting eaten. Since he had taken all the metal off of his person before leaving, Magneto was unable to lift him to safety. He looked on helplessly, trying to think of a way to save his new son, and was startled by a possibly female person flying by and grabbing out of harm's way.

_//I could have done that.//_

The female person landed in front of the cage and set Lance down. Magneto rushed over to see if he was safe.

"Thank you for saving my son, Miss."

The female person touched two fingers lightly to her forehead.

"No need for thanks, citizen. Black Ace Nova is always willing to help. Now if you will excuse me, I must away!" She swooshed her cape and flew away into the sky.

"What a weird girl," Lance said as they left the zoo. He was holding a large stuffed hippo in one hand and a banana pop in the other. "Is she some sort of superhero do ya think?"

"Perhaps. But what kind of super-hero name is 'Black Ace Nova,' anyway?"

"Better than Jean Grey. Totally unimaginative."

"I know! That's what I said!"

Lance looked at the stuffed hippo in his hands. "You think Kitty'll like this?"

"Of course she will. It is a gesture that shows, even though I was having a blast at the zoo, I still thought of you. Or something."

"We should go give it to her now."

"We should!"

Just as they had made it to the car, the blizzard started. It was not one of those 'it started getting colder and then started snowing' blizzards, but a sudden out-of-nowhere blizzard that picked up without warning. Lance dove into the car the second Magneto unlocked it and pulled his jacket on, teeth chattering.

"I bet now you're glad that you brought that with you, aren't you?"

"_I bet now you're glad that you brought that with you_," Lance mimicked. "Dude, _no one_ could have predicted this storm. What gives, anyway? You think it has anything to do with that Storm chick at the Institute?"

"That's a distinct possibility."

He pulled out his cell phone and hit 3 on the speed dial. Minutes went by, and finally the phone was answered.

"Xavier Institute," said the very familiar voice on the other end. "If it's not importan' d'ya thin' y' c'n call back later?"

"Gambit? Is that you?"

"Boss? What are you calling the Institute for?"

"What are you _at_ the Institute for?"

"Oh, well, uh, y'see, uh,"

"Oh save it. We'll talk about this at home. Is Storm there?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'here,' boss."

"What do you mean?"

There was a sound on the other end that sounded like lightning, followed by the sound of someone screaming, followed by the sound of French curses mingled with the sound of an explosion, followed by someone saying 'Nice work, Cajun, now ya' just made 'er angrier!' which was followed by someone picking the phone up off of the floor.

"Boss, she hafta call you back. She not exactly in de mood t' talk to _anybody_ right now."

"Gambit, what is going on?"

"Never piss off a weather goddess," was Gambit's reply before he hung up the phone.

Magneto hung up the phone and stared at Lance, who stared back. The phone had been on speaker, so he had heard every word.

"Sounds like something's going down over there. We should go check it out. Kitty could be in trouble."

"Yes, and I think it would be a good idea to make sure Gambit is all right."

About three miles from the mansion the blizzard stopped. Just… stopped. Magneto looked around bewildered. Already children were running outside to play in the snow. He doubted anyone would be complaining about it, especially after the heat wave they'd had lately.

Lance pulled skillfully into the front yard of the Institute. They got out and strode over to the front porch, where Rogue was sitting watching the group of students running around playing in the snow. Magneto sidestepped just before a snowball hit him, but Lance took one full force in the back. He made one and threw it at the perpetrator only to have him split into two when the ball hit him.

"Mutant Snowball Fight!" A boy whose body was partially covered in ice called.

This seemed to be the signal for all of the students to begin pelting each other with snowballs. They all used their powers quite liberally. Lance ran off to join them. Magneto stood in front of Rogue.

"So ya got 'im ta agree ta bein' yo new son. Congratulations."

"Thank you. I'm looking for one of my lackeys. Is he here?"

"Which one? They're all here. Gambit's up in the infirmareh. He got hit by lahtnin' when 'e trahed ta subdue Storm. Colossus is off in that general direction," she waved her arm toward the trees, "and Pyro's out back helpin' Roberto and Amara thaw out tha obstacle course. Although if I had ta guess, I'd say that by now he's figured out he can control her lahke a puppet when she powers up, so he's probably doing that. Oh, and Sabretooth is off fahtin' Wolverine an Ah don' know where that monkey is."

As if to confirm this, Wolverine and Sabretooth rolled by with their hands at each other's throats. Two clones of the boy who produced clones ran after them, egging them on.

"You get 'im Mr. Logan!"

"Go, Sabretooth! Go go go!"

Magneto shook his head and went inside.

"These people need serious psychiatric help. It's not a school, it's a nuthouse!"

"It's nothing like a 'nuthouse," said an angry voice in the next room. He looked. It was Wanda. "Trust me, I know."

"Oh, Wanda! How nice to see you, dear. What are you doing here?"

"Returning a book I borrowed from Rogue. By the way, she told me you called earlier. Something about wanting a new daughter?"

"Oh, don't be like that, Wanda. If you wouldn't try to kill me every time I see you then I wouldn't consider myself a failure."

"Maybe if you hadn't locked me in an insane asylum!"

"Maybe if you'd tried controlling your temper!"

"Maybe if you'd showed a little understanding!"

"Maybe if I hadn't been fighting for my life every time I went near you!"

"Maybe if you'd remembered my birthday!"

"Birthdays are hard to keep track of!"

"You remembered Pietro's!"

"So?"

"We're twins! Our birthdays are on the same day!"

He stopped yelling. "You're right, of course. Wanda, do we have to do this every time you see me? I know I've failed you as a parent, but it's not too late to start over, right?"

She was glaring at him. "I think so, but the people at the Anger Management seminar think differently," she said sulkily. "Maybe I'll stop trying to kill you."

"One step at a time, Dear. Now. What exactly happened here?"

"Oh. _That_." She rolled her eyes and sneered. "Storm was arguing with Wolverine, pure knock-down drag-out affair, and then he had the _gall_ to ask her if it was 'that time.' If you ask me, he deserved what he got."

"And what did he get?"

Wanda's face took on a slightly manic shine. Her eyes glinted with delight. "Lightning," she said with an evil smile. "Right on his metal skull and down through his metal skeleton. He's just one big lightning rod."

"That is true, actually."

"Oh, and Gambit got caught in the crossfire and now he's in the infirmary."

**(o.o.o)**

Gambit was more or less unharmed. He was ready to leave the infirmary by the time Magneto got there. He followed his boss out to the yard to find Pyro.

As per Rogue's prediction, he had learned that he could control Magma in her powered up form. As they stared, he made her do complex acrobatics in midair.

"Pyro! Put her down!" Magneto ordered.

Pyro jumped, startled, and released his hold on Amara. She fell to the ground with an 'oof.' Pyro jogged over to them.

"What's up, Boss?"

"It's about time we were leaving. Go with Gambit and find Colossus and Mastermind. Wanda and I will find Sabretooth and get him to stop fighting Wolverine."

Gambit snorted as he and Pyro headed off in the general direction that Colossus had last been seen in. Magneto turned and walked in the opposite direction, searching for the two rivals.

They had climbed to the top of the mansion and were duking it out on the roof. Magneto flew himself and Wanda up and stood over the two. When it became apparent that they would not stop fighting, he used his powers to lift Wolverine into the air, where he struggled to break free.

"You really shouldn't walk around with metal bones, Wolverine," he said. "Especially if you plan to fight one of my lackeys when I need to take him home."

Despite the obvious discomfort of having Magneto hold you suspended in midair by your bones, Wolverine was able to taunt his rival.

"Whassa matter, Sabretooth? Stay out past curfew?"

With a snarl, Sabretooth jumped toward Wolverine with the intent of ripping him a new navel, but Magneto moved him out of the way. He landed on all fours and turned to glare at everyone in the general vicinity.

"You'll have to play with your little friend later, Sabretooth," Wanda said. "Why don't you call later and reschedule your little romp-session?"

Sabretooth glared at her and snarled. Apparently he had just said something funny, because Wolverine started laughing.

"That's tellin' 'er. You're goin' soft, _Sabby_. Wa!" The last part was because Magneto had dropped him right into the pool with a splash.

He submerged momentarily, but managed to make his way out. Sabretooth was laughing at him.

"You make a great lightning rod but a horrible floatation device. And if you wanna give it a shot then be my guest, but make sure I'm there for the show!"

Magneto decided to leave them to argue and floated away to see if Gambit and Pyro had found Colossus and Mastermind yet.

They had managed to track down Mastermind, who was sitting duct-taped to a tree and pouting. Gambit was sitting under the next tree playing Solitaire. Magneto looked from him to Mastermind.

"Jason, why are you duct-taped to a tree?"

He tried to answer, but found this difficult due to the tape over his mouth. Magneto rolled his eyes at the psychic's incompetence and ripped the tape off of him. He yowled, rubbing his face.

"Oh, stop being such a baby." He balled up the duct tape and tossed it behind him. "Where are Pyro and the Tinman?"

Gambit snickered. "Pyro and the Tinman, sounds like a black and white crime drama from de 40's."

"No one asked you Gambit. Coincidentally, you're right. Now where are they?"

Gambit shrugged. "Dunno. Dey said something about mutant dust bunnies and ran off."

Magneto shook his head and wandered in the direction Gambit was pointing. "I need smarter subordinates," he muttered. "I hear some weird things have been happening in Cardiff. Perhaps it's caused by mutant activity. I would be a prime recruitment oppurtunity." (heheh. _Torchwood_ reference.)

He found Colossus and Pyro on the edge of the forest, looking up into a tree. He stepped between them and looked up as well. He saw nothing.

"What are you two knuckleheads doing?"

"Waitin' on th' mutant dust bunny t' come down," Pyro said without looking away.

"I do not think he is up there anymore, Pyro," Colossus, still not removing his eyes from the tree. "Perhaps he escaped."

"No, mate, see 'im, right there?" He pointed at one of the branches. "He's just scared, that's all. I wish 'e would come down."

"I'm going to regret this." Magneto floated up to the branch Pyro had pointed out. Immediately the animal jumped out of the tree and onto his head. "Ah! Ah! Get it off! Not a bunny! Not. A. Bunny! Ahhhh!"

Between the three of them, they got the creature off of the white haired mutant. Piotr held it clutched in his large metal hands, trying to calm it. Magneto glared at Pyro.

"How, in the name of all that is good and sugary in this world, did you mistake that… that _thing_ for a rabbit?"

"It was moving really fast!" Pyro answered defensively. "Besides, I've only ever seen them on the cover of the _Redwall_ books!" he took the now calm being from Piotr. "And don't call 'er a thing. She's a ferret and her name is Amelia."

"Why is it-?" He stopped when he realized why Pyro was naming it. "Pyro, you are _not_ keeping that thing as a pet."

"But Boss…" he wined. "She _needs_ me!"

He put on his most winning look. Piotr tried to take the ferret from him, but he turned away.

"Pyro, he is right. Amelia is a wild animal. She will not be happy cooped up at the base. She will be miserable. She belongs here. Let her go free."

"Well… okay. But I'm gonna be the one to let her loose."

He walked over to the tree she had tried to escape in. He stroked her fur pitifully.

"I gotta let y' go, Amelia. I know we weren't together long, but already I can't imagine life without you." He sniffed and set her on the ground. She took of up the tree. "G'bye, Amelia!"

"Now that _that_ idiocy is over," Magneto said with a roll of his eyes, "Perhaps we can leave."

"All right." Pyro seemed to have cheered up already. He led the way back to the mansion. "Besides, ferrets smell funny anyway."

They stopped at the clearing to untie Mastermind, and the four of them headed back to the mansion. Sabretooth was sitting on the steps waiting for him. For once he wasn't snarling and being generally annoying. In fact, he looked positively blissful! The others exchanged worried looks.

"There're only two reasons I can think of for Sabretooth to be grinnin' like that, and I seriously doubt either o' 'em have happened."

Gambit shrugged. "Y' t'ink he found some catnip again?"

"It's possible."

"In that case," Magneto said, "I move we leave him here. Let the X-Men handle his tantrums for once. And speaking of tantrums…"

Pietro was running toward them, looking generally hurt. Lance and Wanda were struggling to catch up, panting for breath. Pietro ran to his father and pounded his fists against his chest.

"How could you how could you how could you? Wasn't I a good enough son to you? Wasn't I loyal enough?"

Lance and Wanda had finally caught up. Lance leaned on his knees and gasped for breath.

"He's right y'know," he finally said. "You can't just go swapping out your kids willy-nilly. Especially if you have a bad relationship with them to begin with."

Wanda nodded in agreement. Pietro was sulking off in a corner- well, if there was a corner for him to sulk in and still be in hearing range. He was muttering to himself, but loudly enough for them to hear.

"Can't believe you I gave you the best years of my life and you pull something like this you only get one dad in your life and I had to get the one that tries to replace me _what is wrong with you?_"

Wanda left to console her twin and Lance pulled Magneto off to the side.

"Listen, Mags, this was fun. I had a really good time today, and for a little while I could pretend I had a dad who actually wanted me. But… Pietro is your son for real, and he really seems fond of you. I think as long as you got a shot with him you should take it. I hope we can still be friends."

"Did you just break up with me?"

Lance looked oddly at him. "Y' know, I didn't realize it sounded like that."

Magneto sighed. "You're right, of course. Oh well. See you at the party Saturday?"

"Of course."

"Good. Take care of Pietro for me, will you? I'll patch things up with him when he's calmed down a bit."

**(o.o.o)**

_Lance was right of course. I would be better off trying to build a relationship with my children instead of replacing them. I just can't wait until Saturday._

**(o.o.o)**

"Hey, wait, t'day's Saturday!" Pyro double-checked the calendar on his wall. "What party? I didn't get invited to any party! Is that where they're all at now? Even Jason? It's not fair!" He crossed his arms and huffed. "Well in that case I don't feel bad about invadin' their privacy anymore."

He stomped across the hall and set Mastermind's door on fire. Several seconds later the security system exploded and sent shrapnel flying everywhere. Pyro ducked so that the shards wouldn't hurt him. Once the debris had settled, he stomped into Mastermind's room and shoved things around until he found the man's diary. Once found, he settled into the very large and comfy bed to read.

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- Y'know I don't really like the majority of this chapter. Anyway, you lot get to decide which story I write next! I have two in mind that are more or less at the same level of development, but I figure I can definitely write at least one story before my obsession runs out. The titles of the stories are: **_**The Problem With Parents, or How Magneto Got His Groove Back**_** and **_**Pyro and Toad's Adventure on Ploog**_**. I like both of them and both will eventually be written, but I'll probably only get one up during this obsession. So vote! (I'll be putting the poll up on my profile and it will close three days after I post the last chapter of this story.)**

**(1) Coupling and consequently Captain Subtext are the property of Steve Moffat and the BBC.**


	6. Mastermind's Tips on How to Beat the Hea

Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy! **

**A/N- See, I told you I would come up with an idea for this eventually. Anyways, this is Mastermind's diary, and once more we have lots of Pyro-ey goodness thrown in for fun. This chapter takes place on the same day as the Magneto chapter. You get to find out why the Acolytes were all at the Mansion, why there was a freak blizzard, and loads more! Go me!**

**Hey, has anyone besides me noticed that they seem to be having a heat wave lately? I mean, how did that happen? I just needed it to be hot so they could wear their civvies and Bam! Suddenly there's a heat wave. Ah well. Maybe Storm had something to do with it.**

**And vote! You have the power to control what story I do next! Granted, I've already typed up the first chapter of both stories, but I need to know which to continue! And I've decided to extend the voting to a whole week after the last chapter. So go vote! So far, two people have voted (the decision is unanimous, but I'm not telling you for what.) If you would like to become an informed voter, read the plot overview listed on my profile after the abuse warning, or pm me.**

(o.o.o)

**Chapter 5- Mastermind's Tips On How To Beat The Heat**

(o.o.o) 

/_Denotes thought_/

**(o.o.o)**

He stomped across the hall and set Mastermind's door on fire. Several seconds later the security system exploded and sent shrapnel flying everywhere. Pyro ducked so that the shards wouldn't hurt him. Once the debris had settled, he stomped into Mastermind's room and shoved things around until he found the man's diary. Once found, he settled into the very large and comfy bed to read.

**(o.o.o)**

_I am really getting sick of that little twerp's annoying plans. They're bizarre. Crazy. Odd. Creepy. He's a little creep. He's a bizarre little creep._

**(o.o.o)**

"Aw, come _on_, Jason, pleeeeeaaaase?"

"Why?"

"Come on, you gotta do it! Pietro already made the costumes and we've got all of the other parts, we just need you to play Mary Anne!"

"Why do I have to play Mary Anne?"

"Because it's the only part available!"

"Why can't I play the Professor or something?"

"Because that's Wanda's part."

"If I can't do a male part then I'm not playing."

"But Jaaaaaa-ssoooon!"

Pyro had come up with the idea to re-enact an episode of Gilligan's Island. He had invited Pietro and Wanda to play because they were the only Brotherhood members at the Boarding house when he called. Pietro had made costumes for them, as well as convinced Wanda to help. Jason wasn't actually sure how he'd managed to do that, to be honest. 

With the twins, they had exactly seven people, and Pyro was now currently trying to convince the psychic to play the part of Mary Anne. Jason didn't want to. He wanted to play the Skipper or the Professor. But Sabretooth was playing the Skipper and Wanda was playing the Professor, so that was out. Pyro himself would be playing Ginger, and he was already dolled up in the slinky orange cocktail dress that Pietro had made for him. He had also donned a pair of inflatable breasts, which he had inflated to at least a d-cup. Gambit was dressed as Gilligan, and beside him stood Pietro in a costume of Thurston Howell III. Piotr was playing Mrs. Howell, which only left one part open for Jason.

It was really too bad, too, because Wanda would have looked smokin' in the Mary Anne costume Pietro had made.

"Why do I have to play Mary Anne? Why can't you let the girl do it?"

"Because, my fuzzy-browed monkey-man, _that_ would be typecasting. And typecasting is a very bad thing."

"I'm not a monkey!"

"Oh, come off it, Jase. You're the only one with the legs to pull off those shorts!"

"Fine!"

He snatched the costume and inflatable breasts out of Pyro's hands and stalked into the next room to change. Pyro had been right, he _did_ have the legs to pull off the costume. That was actually kind of creepy, because he didn't recall actually revealing his legs around Pyro before- or anyone else for that matter.

"Not one of you says a word," he ordered before walking angrily back into the room.

They didn't say anything, though that probably had to do with the fact that it is difficult to talk and laugh at the same time.

"Y' kinda overdid it on the knockers, doncha think there Fuzzy-brow?" Sabretooth asked after a while. "Jeez, man, when was the last time you saw a pair?"

Mastermind glared. "They're no bigger than _his_," he said, jabbing a thumb in Pyro's direction.

"Yes, but y' see mate, I'm Ginger. I'm the loose slutty movie star. I'm _supposed_ to have big breasts."

"You know, Runt, that is the single weirdest thing that I have ever heard you say."

"Gambit always t'ought dat Mary Anne was more of a slut dan Ginger."

Pyro paused as he put on his wig. "How' d' ya mean, Remmers?" 

"Well t'ink about it fo' a moment. Ginger always wore dose slinky dresses that more or less covered her up." They all nodded that this was true. "But Mary Ann had on dose skimpy shorts and de tied up shirts. She didn't leave much to de imagination."

"Well, it was hot on the island," Sabretooth said. "Of course she would wear skimpy clothes."

"If it was so hot then why did Gilligan always wear long sleeves?" Pietro asked. "I mean, c'mon! Why would find the heat unbearable and another find it lightly refreshing?"

Gambit elbowed Colossus.

"Fir de same reason that Piotr is sweatin' like a pig and Gambit is not."

Mastermind sighed. It was bad enough that he was wearing a Mary Ann costume, but now they weren't even playing and that bugged him. 

And then there was a knock on the door. The others ignored it.

"I'll get that, shall I?" he suggested sarcastically. He opened the door. "Yes?"

It was Mystique. She stared at his costume for some time before seeming to decide that she didn't want to know.

"Is Magneto there?"

"Yes, come with me."

He guided her to the office door. He could have just let her go on her own, but anything was better than going back to those imbeciles. At the door, she paused.

"You know, Jason, we should go somewhere some time." She suggested.

"Really?" He tried not to look hopeful, but it was hard. Mystique was sexy, and powerful, and sexy… "Would you want to?"

"Of course. After all, women should stick together when picking up guys."

He sighed. Of course it was a jab at his outfit. 

"Just get in there." 

He opened the door and shoved her in. He had barely turned around when the door opened back up. Mastermind turned back around. It was Magneto. He was leaning out the door. His eyebrows were about even with his hairline, and mouth was hanging open. He closed it, opened it, closed it again, and smiled.

"You know, Jason, if you wear those type of clothes you will only attract the wrong sort of men."

"That's it, I quit!"

He stormed up to his room, ripping off the shirt and fake breasts as he did. Once in his room, he tore off the shorts and shredded them before grabbing his uniform. Looking at it, however, he realized that it was far too hot to wear it, and changed into his civilian attire- a faded Monty Python t-shirt and a pair of khaki's. He looked around for his shoes, then frowned when he realized that they were probably sitting in the front doorway where he'd left them. Grumbling, he opened his room door only to have Pyro run in and latch onto his leg.

"Ja-a-a-a-a-sooooooon!" He shouted. "You can't leave! We need you!"

Mastermind tried shaking him off to no avail. As scrawny as he was, Pyro could be pretty strong when he wanted to be. He walked down to the front hallway, dragging Pyro behind him.

"Let go of my leg, Pyro!"

"No! Not until you promise to stay!"

"Fine, I'll stay, just let o of my leg before you cut off the circulation!"

"Promise! Swear it on your life!"

"Okay, okay, I promise on pain of death that I'll stay- for now. I make no promise on my future actions."

Pyro let go and stood up. "Good enough for me." 

He walked, whistling, up to the rec room. Mastermind watched him go and shook his head, bewildered. Well, as long as he was staying he might as well have a snack. 

**(o.o.o)**

"Man, it's hot!"

They Acolytes, the twins, and Kurt, who had showed up earlier, were all sitting around in the rec room. Magneto had left about an hour ago after calling the Brotherhood house, though his reasons were never given. They were all sitting as still as possible, because of the heat, though admittedly some were suffering more than others. 

Pyro, for example, was not sweating nearly as much as, oh, say, Kurt.

"You think you've got it bad?" he asked. "Try having fur!"

"Yeah, it's a real crapshoot," Sabretooth agreed. He ran a clawed hand through his sweat-matted hair. "Especially if you're used to cold weather."

"On de bright side," Gambit said with a half-smirk. "At least Pyro isn't setting fire to anything."

"S' too hot to set anything on fire," he moaned and grabbed the remote. "Let's just find a good movie and cool off."

He flipped through the channels. Getting two people to agree on a movie is hard enough- getting five Acolytes, two Brotherhood, and an X-Man to agree to a movie is even harder.

"History of the World, Part 1?"

"Pyro, so help me, if you put on another Mel Brooks movie I'm going to gut you and strangle you with your own innards," Sabretooth threatened.

"The Princess Bride?"

"Just watched it with mah Chere last night," Gambit bragged. "Find something else."

"Lord of the Rings trilogy?"

"Too hot for a fantasy flick," Wanda moaned.

"Killer Cat People From Mars, Part VII: The Beginning?"

"Nah, you have to see the first six for everything to make sense," Mastermind informed. "Find something else."

"X-Men?"

"What?!" was the general consensus.

"Oh, wait, never mind, that says _Ax_-Men."

"Zat's very misleading."

"Ice Age?"

"Hey, yeah, that'll work!"

They all agreed on it, and so settled in. Ten minutes into the movie, Sabretooth growled and stood up angrily.

"This is ridiculous!" he said loudly. "We're sitting here practically drowning in sweat and trying to cool off by watching TV! Why can't the old man just spring for an air conditioner? He can afford it! He's got Nazi gold comin' out the wazoo! Can't he-?"

He stopped when the ceiling started whirring, and a panel opened up. A holo-projector lowered out of the ceiling and holo-projected an image of Magneto onto the wall. The image glared at them.

"For the last time, Sabretooth, I am not hording Nazi gold. Now stop wining and suck it up. This message will now self-destruct- BOOM! Ha ha. Just kidding."

The projector switched off and disappeared back into the ceiling. They all stared.

"He can afford that and not an air conditioner?! That's it! Everybody in the car. We're going to the mansion to cool off!"

They all piled into Pyro's car, and within half an hour they were pulling into the driveway of the Institute. Once there, everyone piled out and took off to find their own ways to beat the heat.

Gambit wandered inside in search of Rogue. Colossus said something about there being air conditioning in the library, and headed there. Pietro decided to go find Daniels and torture him for a little while. Pyro, Sabretooth, Wanda, and Mastermind decided to go for a swim in the pool.

They weren't the only ones. Several other students were trying to beat the heat by swimming. Iceman was almost completely submerged in the water, complaining loudly that he was melting. 

"Wa-hooo!" Pyro jumped off of the diving board into the pool, sending water splashing everywhere, including over Sabretooth. "Cannon-baaaaaalll!"

"Yeah? Whaddya want?" A blonde boy stuck his head out one of the upstairs windows. "Who's callin' me?"

Pyro surfaced and spat water out of his mouth.

"Sorry, Sammy, wasn't callin' you. Just doing an actual Cannonball."

Sam pulled his head back into the house, grumbling about code-names and inconsiderate people. Sabretooth growled from the inflatable recliner he had commandeered as Pyro dove again, sending water everywhere. He took off his sunglasses and dried them off.

"Hey, Runt, watch where you're sending those waves."

Pyro laughed and splashed water in Sabretooth's direction. "A cat that doesn't like to get wet. Boy, Sabby, d' ya ever get tired of perpetuating stereotypes?"

"I might ask you the same thing. You're pretty much a walking stereotype."

Mastermind sighed at the immaturity of their argument. He was floating leisurely in the pool, not bothered by Pyro's splashes or any of the other students who were swimming either. Of course this only meant that things could only go downhill.

"How dare you?"

Mastermind opened his eyes to see two people arguing only a few feet away from the pool. He recognized the man as Sabretooth's rival, Wolverine, and after several minutes was able to remember that the woman was Storm, another of the X-Men. Wolverine looked grumpy, though that was nowhere near how Storm looked, which was pissed.

"Look, 'Ro, I know how the weather gets affected by yer moods, and its only the beginning of March. It wouldn't normally be this hot unless you were in a really foul mood. I just wanna know if anything is wrong."

"That wasn't smart," Wanda said. She was sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling her legs in the water. "He's going to get it now."

"Just because the weather is behaving oddly you assume it has something to do with me?" Electricity was crackling around her. Many of the swimmers were climbing out of the pool and getting as far from the weather witch as possible. "Is that it? You think I cannot control my powers?"

Wolverine was beginning to see his mistake. He backed away.

"C' mon, Darlin,' easy now, just put the lightnin' away. I didn't mean to offend you, just didn't realize it was that time."

Okay, so he _didn't_ understand his mistake.

Storm's eyes glowed angrily as she unleashed all the lightning around her onto Wolverine. And of course, having metal bones made him an excellent lightning rod. He yelped and jumped out of the way of the bolts, much to Sabretooth's amusement. 

As she unleashed her fury, clouds began to gather overhead. Only seconds later, the blizzard hit.

Everyone on the mansion's grounds was running towards the building (except Sabretooth. He was perfectly at home in a blizzard and anyway, he wanted to see Wolverine get zapped. And Iceman. He was at home in the snow too.) Pyro lit a human shaped fire to guide him, Wanda, and Jason, as well as a few stragglers.

They made it into the mansion and gathered around the fireplace, where Pyro built a huge fire. He entertained them all with Pyro's Fairy Tale Fireplace Theatre. It was a re-run, though, so Mastermind instead decided to listen to Storm's battle with Wolverine, which had been brought inside, not to mention that Gambit, Rogue, Beast, and Rahne had joined in on the fray.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was only about fifteen minutes, the screaming and the blizzard both stopped- just stopped. Everyone looked around nervously, wandering whether or not it was really over.

They got their answer when Wolverine came downstairs on his way to the infirmary with Storm draped over his shoulders. He stopped when he realized they were all staring at him.

"What? I didn't hurt her. She tired herself out." They quite obviously did not believe him. "It's the truth!"

He stomped down to the infirmary with her in tow. Seconds later Beast walked down carrying Remy. They all stared in awe.

"Ya know what?" the student called Jamie asked. "I don't wanna know."

"Hey, there's still snow out there!" Ray called. "Last one out is a flat-scan human!"

It was like flipping a switch. Everyone present between the ages of 12 and 21 ran out onto the lawn to play in the snow and enjoy a snow-day in March. After that heat wave of the past few days, they felt they deserved it. All except Pyro, Amara, and Roberto, who were roped into thawing out the obstacle course. Mastermind had no doubt that Pyro would soon discover his ability to control the fire mutant in her powered up form. He made a mental prediction as to how long that would take.

Only moments later, Mastermind felt the presence of Magneto and Lance on the grounds. Seconds after that, he heard Iceman yell for a mutant snowball fight and decided to sneak away before anyone found him.

In the woods, he was finally alone. He liked being alone. Usually he was in the company of the other Acolytes, who annoyed him with their constant chatter and arguing and Pyro's attempts to involve him in their games. True, it was nice to feel included, but they were all idiots and beneath him.

Besides, Pyro had a tendency to mentally sing show-tunes at the top of his mental voice, which of course Jason would pick up on and immediately get stuck in his head. He was convinced that Pyro did it on purpose, but of course he couldn't prove anything.

Mastermind jumped, startled, when he heard a noise a little ways to his left. He was not the only one on the woods, it would seem. He crept toward the noise quietly and looked around the tree in his way.

It was Colossus. He was trying to gather up the bits of a sled that had been broken into about a dozen pieces. Obviously, he had been sledding and had run into a tree. This, combined with his massive weight, had shattered the sled. The southern boy from earlier, Sam, was with him. He was holding his head. 

"Okay," he said. "So blasting to make the sled go faster _wasn't_ tha best adea Ah ever had. Least it was you Ah tested with first, Colossus. Thanks, by the way."

"Not a problem, small one," Colossus reassured. "After all, it is better to use someone invulnerable for a testing dummy than someone fragile."

"Right, okay, whatever you say." He gathered up the pieces of his sled. "Don't worry, Ah'll fix this later. See ya!"

He waved and ran back to the grounds. Colossus smiled at his retreating form before turning to the area where Mastermind was hiding.

"Why are you hiding there, Jason?" He asked. Mastermind stepped out into the open. "You act as if you are up to something."

"I am merely enjoying the peace and quiet. What were you doing way out here?"

"I was helping Sam with an experiment. Perhaps…" He paused and they both looked around to the brush, where two forms were fighting their way towards them. "Pyro and Gambit. Why are you here?"

The two other Acolytes stumbled out of the undergrowth. Gambit was having less trouble than Pyro, until a snowdrift dropped out of a tree onto his head. Then he danced around as if he were dying.

"We came here to tell you that the boss wants us to leave now. He's come by to pick us up."

"Aww, man, I t'ink I got brainfreze!" Gambit sneezed. "I hate cold weather."

"It is not that bad." Colossus handed him a tissue. 

Since they had come to beat the heat, they were all wearing thin, summer appropriate clothing. Colossus was the only one seemingly unaffected by the cold; in fact, he seemed to be reveling in it. Mastermind could even pick up a song playing in his mind. He probed a bit. Ah, a song from the old country, sung by children when it snowed.

He was planning to ask about the song when he felt something furry brush past his foot. He stiffened up. It felt like a rat. He didn't like rats. He darted up the tree and clung to it for dear life like… well, like a monkey, really. He could just hear Sabretooth laughing at him in his head.

At the same time that Mastermind was freaking out, Pyro yelled 'Mutant dust bunnie!' and took off after the furry thing. Colossus and Gambit sighed and played a quick game of rock-paper-scissors. Gambit won, so Colossus took off into the woods after Pyro. Gambit, meanwhile, had the task of coaxing Mastermind out of the tree.

The task proved to be easy, as Mastermind was still shell-shocked from his combined fear of rats and heights. Once he had him on the ground, Gambit took a roll of duct tape out of his pocket and tied him to the tree, for reasons he was never clear on. When the telepath complained, he took out some more duct tape and put it over his mouth. He then proceeded to play Solitaire to pass the time.

This was how Magneto found him several minutes later.

"Jason, why are you duct taped to a tree?"

He tried to answer, but found this difficult due to the tape over his mouth. Magneto rolled his eyes at the psychic's incompetence and ripped the tape off of him. He yowled, rubbing his face.

"Oh, stop being such a baby." He balled up the duct tape and tossed it behind him. "Where are Pyro and the Tinman?"

Gambit snickered. "Pyro and the Tinman, sounds like a black and white crime drama from de 40's."

"No one asked you Gambit. Coincidentally, you're right. Now where are they?"

Gambit shrugged. "Dunno. Dey said something about mutant dust bunnies and ran off."

Magneto shook his head and wandered in the direction Gambit was pointing. Meanwhile, Gambit proceeded to undo the tape holding him to the tree. Some time later, the others came through, led by Pyro. After a tantrum from Pietro in the front yard, they left the manor.

**(o.o.o)**

Because neither Pyro nor Magneto's car could fit all of them, they split up. Magneto had Colossus and the twins in his car. Mastermind envied him. He was riding with Sabretooth and Gambit in Pyro's car and was thoroughly frightened. Gambit was sitting up front with Pyro, and they were talking animatedly about two of the X-Men who were doing something with someone else… Mastermind couldn't tell, and he wasn't really interested. Sabretooth was sitting in back with the telepath, not talking. This wasn't so bad, because Sabretooth frightened mastermind no end, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to. 

He wished he were in the other car with Magneto. Colossus was always nice enough to engage in small talk, and with Magneto he could always talk about his plans- that lately seemed to focus on his children.

Okay, so maybe Pyro's car wasn't that bad.

Especially since he was talking about stopping for ice cream!

"Are you crazy, Pyro?" Gambit said. Sabretooth snorted.

"That was a rhetorical question, right?"

"Look, it's freezin' out dere."

"Not 'nymore." Sabretooth pointed out the window. The snow was beginning to melt. "Looks like Stormy decided to undo her handy work."

"Dat femme is _crazy_." Gambit clutched his head. "She zapped Gambit an' 'e was just tryin' ta help! What was her problem, anyway?"

Sabretooth chuckled, recalling the scene. "The pipsqueak asked her if it was 'that time' when she was already angry at him."

The others winced, recalling similar mistakes in their past. Jason, for one, could remember asking Mystique once, when they had just met. She had then proceeded to beat the crap out of him. No, it was not the smartest thing Wolverine had ever done.

Pyro was currently pulling into the parking lot of a fifties style ice cream parlor.

"Ice scream, you scream, we all scream for ice scream!" he sang happily as they went inside. They were greeted by a reply.

"I scream, you scream, we all scream when we slam our hands in the door!"

"Acey!"

Pyro leapt happily over to the dog-tailed mutant and grabbed her off of her stool in a hug.

"Hiya, Pyro," the girl said happily. "What're you doin' here?"

"We hear for ice cream," Gambit answered. He sat down and smiled at her, full charm. "And you!"

"The same!"

"Duh," Pyro said. "Obviously. Oh! Right! These are my friends! You already know Gambit, and that's Mastermind and Sabretooth."

Mastermind had already sat down and ordered his ice cream. Sabretooth, on the other hand, had not moved from the door. He was staring at the girl slightly nervously, not quite fearful though with definite apprehension.

Cats and dogs just don't mix.

"Guys, this is Ace. She runs the Bayville Theatre."

"Right, and I'm glad I ran into you. I tried to call and tell you, you got the part. Isn't that great? First rehearsal is a week from tomorrow. Are you gonna be there?"

"Course. Wouldn't miss it."

Mastermind turned away from Pyro and Ace's conversation. Sabretooth had finally ventured to the counter, though he was careful to keep the others between himself and Ace, and he was waiting for his sundae. He was waiting impatiently, too, drumming his claws onto the table and glaring at the nervous soda jerk.

"He'll probably go faster if you stop intimidating him."

"Yep," Sabreooth growled in response. "But this makes me feel much better."

They got their ice screams and ate in silence for a while. It was peaceful… until the anti-mutant crowd showed up. They were little more than teenagers, some of them young enough that it was entirely possible they might later be mutants themselves. Sabretooth growled and hunched over his ice cream when they all burst through the door, carrying their torches and pitchforks in what is quite possibly the worst cliché ever.

"Aw, come on!" Pyro said. "It's gettin' where a bloke can't even eat ice cream with his mates without that lot showin' up."

"You'd t'ink dey'd learn deir lesson by now," Gambit replied. He tossed a charged spoon behind him and they all ducked as it exploded. "Isn't dis de same mob as de last seven times?"

"It would appear that way," Mastermind answered. He lifted up his bowl as some of the shrapnel skidded along the counter. "We might as well get rid of them before they completely destroy the shop."

"I'll take care of them," Sabretooth said. 

He swiveled around on his stool and stood to his full height, arms crossed over his chest and fangs bared. The mob recoiled a bit, but stayed put.

"Don't worry about him, gang," their leader ordered. "He can't take all of us."

"Five will get you ten he can," Gambit said automatically. You can take the gambler out of Vegas…

"Can he really handle all of them at once?" Ace asked. "I mean, there look like a lot of them."

"He'll be fine, Sheila," Pyro reassured. He lifted his bowl to his face and slurped out the melted ice cream at the bottom. "Sabretooth is freaky strong, he can handle anything. He's Canadian, you know."

"Well, I guess if he's Canadian…"

Sabretooth had managed to throw three of the mob members through the window and was now working on the eight or so who hadn't fled. Everyone lifted their bowls automatically when he threw one along the counter, then put them back down and returned to their ice cream.

Except for Ace. She had completely forgotten about her ice cream. It lay abandoned on the floor, where it had fallen in the fray, and she sat on the edge of her stool watching him, her tail wagging furiously.

Finally there were only two mobsters left.

"Come on," the leader said. "We don't wanna be here anyway." He raised his voice to call to the owner of the shop, who was cowering in the back. "You just lost a lot of business, old man! No one'll wanna eat at a place where they serve muties!"

"Mutie is such a derogatory term," Pyro said. "I prefer 'superior genome."

Gambit smacked him. "Dat doesn't even make sense."

The owner had come out of the back.

"I don't care if those bigots don't want to eat here. I serve all people, normal or mutant. Besides, you guys are my best customers."

"You're a good man," Gambit said. "But we'd better get a move on before they decide to come back for round two. You be all right here?"

"I'll be fine. See you Saturday!"

"What's Saturday?" Pyro asked as they left.

"Oh, uh…" Gambit looked nervous. "I, uh, I'm bringin' Rogue here. She finally agreed to a date. I, uh, musta mentioned it to 'im. While you were talkin' to Ace."

"Oh yeah, speakin' of Ace." He turned to his friend, who was staring in awe at a rather uncomfortable Sabretooth. "You need a ride home? Wouldn't want ya ta run inta that mob again."

"Sure thing."

"Your chariot, milady," he said jokingly, holding the front door open for her. She bowed and climbed in. "The rest of you can ride in the back."

The ten-minute ride to the theatre where Ace lived was loud. Ace, like Pyro, liked show-tunes and seemed to think that their purpose, outside of the show of course, was to sing them as loudly and as off-key as possible.

"This is the song that runs under the credits! These are the credits, so this is where it goes! Has nothing to do with the movie so we'll saaaaaaaaay!! Hey hey heyhey hey hey heeeyyy!!" 

"Oww…" Sabretooth had his hands clamped over his sensitive ears, trying to block out the sound of their singing. "Why did I come with him, anyway?"

Mastermind patted his back sympathetically. He had gotten the song stuck in his head many times from reading Pyro's mind- one would think he had learned by now- and shared in his pain.

"There once was a song that ran under the credits… oh hey, we're here,"Ace said. She hopped out of the car and Gambit jumped into her now empty seat. "Thanks for the ride, Pyro!" **(1)**

**(o.o.o)**

The minute they got home, Sabretooth grabbed a bottle of aspirin and a cold compress and stormed upstairs to his room after giving a look that very clearly said that anyone who bothered him did so only under pain of death. Since none of them had a death wish, they really didn't want to bug him. Pyro also ran up to his room, calling down something about a new idea for his next book. Magneto was in his office, and Colossus was sitting on the couch watching TV. Since the movie was in Russian, and the only Russian Mastermind did know was 'Nyet, ya koshka,' that left only Gambit to talk to. **(2)** Gambit gave him an awkward look for several seconds before muttering something about calling and checking on the cake order for the party and going rather hastily into the next room. Mastermind sighed in loneliness and went up to his own room to pick out his outfit for the party Saturday.

**(o.o.o)**

_I suppose I should put down here that Pyro isn't so bad, but come on! He made me dress up like a girl and shot any chances I might have ever had of gaining Mystique's affections! Or any other woman, for that matter! (frustrated groan) Plus, he told Sabretooth about my little tree-climbing incident, and I still haven't lived that down. Oh well. I'm getting used to it._

**(o.o.o)**

"Wha-! It's not faaaaair! Even _Mastermind_ got invited to the party and not me!"

Angry at the world, he stomped out of Mastermind's room without reading further. Had he read further, he would have noticed the reason _why_ he had not been informed of the party. But, more on that next chapter.

Once in the kitchen, Pyro grabbed a large tub of ice cream and plonked down in front of the TV. After flipping through the channels for several minutes, he found that _Howl's Moving Castle_ was coming on. He grinned and left it there. He like _Howl's Moving Castle_, even if the others hated when he watched it. Just because he tried to get the base to move a few times…

Twenty minutes into the movie the phone started ringing. He decided to ignore it, since it was either not for him or it was one of the others, and he didn't want to talk to any of them.

After a while, it became apparent that they would not hang up. Grumbling, Pyro got up and stomped over to the phone.

"Yeah, whaddya want?"

"Pyro, you better be glad it was me callin' and not Magneto. You know he hated it when we don't answer the phone properly."

It was Gambit. Pyro scowled. He didn't care to talk to Gambit right now.

"I said, whaddya want?"

"Can you come to the Institute and give me a ride home?"

Pyro was furious. Was that all he was good for? As a chauffeur?

"Why should I?"

"Cause I need you, Pyro! Please?"

"Fine, but I'll do it when I'm good and ready and not a moment sooner. Got it?"

Gambit sighed, disgruntled. "Fine, Pyro, but just make it soon, aright?"

"No promises." 

He slammed the phone down. The movie had by now lost its appeal, which was a real shame. He shook his head and sighed. Well, he would have to wait a while to pick Gambit up anyway. He might as well have some fun while he waited.

Pyro grinned evilly. Fun, yes, and he knew exactly how, too…

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- Mwaha. So what has Pyro got in store for the others? Why didn't they invite him to the party? Why **_**did**_** they invite Mastermind? I mean, Pyro's loads more fun than Mastermind! Anyway, the next chapter is Pyro's diary; won't that be fun? I personally think so.**

**Anyway, I'm glad this story is ending, coz I'm beginning to get bored with it. I want to move on to either **_**The Problem With Parents**_** or **_**Adventure on Ploog**_**. Don't forget to vote! And to review!**

**(1) Lyrics from **_**The Credits Song**_**, property of Big Idea.**

**(2) **_**Nyet, ya koshka**_**, translation: No, I'm a cat.**


	7. Form the Mind of a Pyromaniac

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy! **

**A/N- What, you thought that I would write a story about Pyro and then leave him out of all the fun? A pox on everyone who thought that, a pox, I say! So, yeah, anyway, this is Pyro's diary entry for the day of the story. It's written a few days after the fact to give Pyro time to sober up, though. And don't forget to go vote for the next story I write!**

**The scene in here with Sabretooth and the light fixture is dedicated to my beta reader Tocxica, because she's the one who wanted to see it.**

**Oh yeah, and the legal drinking age in Australia is 18, if I remember correctly. Since Pyro was probably older than that when he left, he would have conceivably been allowed to drink, whether it was a good idea or not. Also, I've never been able to get an accurate count of Pyro's age (people put it anywhere from 17 to 23, usually) so I'm meeting in the middle and saying that at this point in time, he is about 20. (Keep in mind this is a bit later than the series, since some time has gone by since the Apocalypse fiasco.**

**Snap- Calling that a fiasco is like calling Sherman's March a stroll through the park.**

**Bubbles- Oh, put a sock in it. By the way, how's that story coming along?**

**Snap- It's only a oneshot, so I'm almost finished. Are you going to post it?**

**Bubbles- Depends on what I think of it.**

**(o.o.o)**

/_Denotes thought/_

**(o.o.o)**

Chapter 6- From the Mind of a Pyromaniac

**(o.o.o)**

_Ok, so Saturday started out boring. Everyone had plans for the day, and none of them wanted to play with me. So I decided to get them back by reading their diaries, and you wanna know what I found out? They were all at a party! I wasn't even invited! So I… kinda got a little even. Of course, they're never gonna wanna play with me ever after this. Hmmm… didn't think this all the way through._

**(o.o.o)**

Pyro brushed his hands on his pants and surveyed his handiwork. He had spray painted polka-dots all over the walls of Gambit's room, toilet papered Piotr's, taped saran wrap across the door to Sabretooth's (after leaving nice little flaming gift for him) pinned Mastermind's boxers to the walls of the base, and found a new ferret, which he left in Magneto's room for him to find later.

"That'll teach 'em t' go to a party without tellin' me. And I know it was a good party too, cause usually they just tell me that it's a drinking party. Man I wish I were old enough to drink. Stupid America with its high legal drinking age. I miss alcohol."

He looked around and realized that he was talking to himself. He was really going crazy. Didn't all crazy people talk to themselves? Well, no. Some crazy people talked to other people. The fact that those people were not real and only existed in that person's imagination notwithstanding, they were not talking to themselves.

"I wonder what other revenge I can exact on those fellows before I go pick 'em up? Hmmm… Hey I know!"

He dug around in the cabinet under the sink in his bathroom until he found what he was looking for. There, at the very back, were seven cans of silly string. He had stashed them there during the prank war they'd fought against the Brotherhood two months ago.

Taking the silly string and cackling evilly, he began to completely cover the walls of the living room, the lounge, and the rec room… pretty much the entire first floor of the base. Soon, the walls were a colorful mass of silly string, which aside from being annoying to clean up, smelled really bad and would assault Sabretooth's heightened sense of smell nicely.

"Now for the coup d'état," he said smugly.

He set up a motion camera at the end of the hallway. He would get photographic evidence of his revenge.

"All right, I think I've made Gambit wait long enough. I'll go pick him and the others up now."

**(o.o.o)**

Pyro pulled into the front yard of the Institute with much more ease than usual. Yep, anger and hurt feelings turn Pyro into a good driver.

The first thing he noticed was that the lights were off in much of the mansion. This was odd; of all the times he had visited the Institute he had never known it to be completely dark. Sure, it was full of teenagers who didn't like to stay home on a Saturday night, but there were of course the teachers, and there was always going to be that one lonely kid who had no life or who had gotten grounded. And then, of course, there was the fact that Remy had told him to meet him there. So what the heck was going on? Where was everybody?

"Remy? Remmers?" Pyro pushed the door open tentatively. It opened easily, another bad sign. The X-Men had too many enemies to just leave their door unlocked if they were all gone. "Hello? Where are ya,' Rem?"

He walked quietly into the living room; reaching behind him, his hand sought the light switch and he found it. He flipped it up, and the lights came on, bathing the room with light and illuminating the people now jumping out at him from all directions.

"Surprise! Happy Birthday!"

"Ack! What?"

"Bout time ya got here. Gambit called ya over an hour ago."

"Ya shouldn't keep us waiting like that, Runt."

"W-wh-what? Birthday?" Pyro checked the date on his watch. "It is my birthday!"

"Pyro, you idiot. How could ya forget yo' own birthday?" Gambit smacked him in the back of the head to emphasize his point. "Ya' been remindin' us all week, an' we been tryin' ta sneak around an' plan dis party."

"Well, I just…" He put a hand to the back of his neck and laughed sheepishly. "You all left me alone t'day and I was so lonely all by me lonesome, so it just kind of slipped me mind."

The others had a good laugh about this before dragging him forcefully over to a table piled with colorfully wrapped boxes and a cake with 'Happy 21st, Pyro!' in bright orange letters.

"So what first, Pyro? Presents or cake?"

"Hmm…" Pyro looked longingly at the presents sitting on the table, then at the cake looking delicious, then at the hungry faces of his friends. "Better make it cake. Yes, that's probably for the best."

**(o.o.o)**

"Excellent cake." Pyro leaned back in his seat and patted his stomach. "Probably the best cake I've had all week."

"T'ink ya wen' a bi' ovaboard on d' seventh slice dere, John." Gambit said. "Shoulda stopped at six. Or five."

Most of the partygoers had long since finished eating and were now either on the dance floor or surrounding it. A few had disappeared, namely Jamie and Bobby, and Pyro had a sneaking suspicion that they were up to something.

"It's so nice to be legal drinking age again," Pyro said happily. Though there was no alcohol at the party, since it was largely populated by minors, Gambit and the others had promised to take him to a bar later on. "Just earlier I was saying to meself about how I missed alcohol."

Gambit snorted. "I'd pay t' see you drunk."

"Aw, I c'n hold me alcohol."

The whole time this conversation was going on he had been opening some of the brightly wrapped gifts on the table next to him. Lighter, lighter, lighter, magic nine ball, lighter… It seemed as if everyone had copped out with a novelty lighter. He sighed.

"Is it so much to ask for total world domination?"

Gambit grinned and socked his arm playfully.

"So, Cajun, ya gonna ask me ta dance or not?" They looked up. Rogue was standing over them, her arms crossed and a playful scowl on her face. "It's a once in a lahfetahme oppurtunity. Take or leave it."

"Who gonna say no ta dat invitation?" He grabbed her gloved hand and bowed. "May I have dis dance, Mon Cherie?"

**(o.o.o)**

The party was going well. Pyro had danced with half the girls present already, and was currently spinning Tabitha around and around to the classic swinging sounds of the 20's. Nearby, Rogue was cutting a fabulous rug with Kurt, whose wiry frame proved to be perfect for that particular style of dance. Logan had surprised them all with a growl of 'amateurs' and grabbed Storm in order to 'show them how it was done,' and Toad had finally convinced Wanda to give him a chance to prove himself and was swinging her around rather dangerously whilst Magneto gave the patented hey-you-get-away-from-my-daughter glare™.

"Bombs away!"

That was when everything went south.

Everyone screamed and yelled and ran out of the way when Bobby and about a dozen or so Jamie's began pelting everyone with water balloons filled with… with…

"Whipped cream?" Pyro scraped some off of his shirt and tasted it. "Who fills a hunnerd water balloons with whipped cream?"

"Someone pulling a prank with a cherry on top!"

Bobby pulled a rope on the wall and a platform above him fell open, dropping several more whipped cream balloons and a pound of cherries onto his head. Bobby closed his eyes as they all laughed at him and sighed. Pyro's cackling laugh rose above the others. Bobby reached up and scraped whipped cream out of his eyes, utterly humiliated.

"How did you know?"

"Saw ya' leavin' early and figgered that ya' had something planned. Just a matter of makin' a few, ah, _rearrangements_. Anyway, I trust you've learned your lesson now. Never, ever, _ever_ try ta pull a prank on St. John Allerdyce on his birthday." He plucked a cherry from Bobby's shirt and popped it in his mouth. "Though I am impressed. It musta taken ages to fill these balloons."

"Not really." The twelve or so Jamie's disappeared, taking with them much of the whipped cream and balloon fragments. Since they all disappeared, it was only to be assumed that the real Jamie was hiding to escape the punishment he would almost certainly receive.

"Self-cleaning prank," Pyro said appreciatively. He sniffed. "Leaves only the fresh scent of pine, ah."

"No more MST3K for you," Magneto muttered.

**(o.o.o)**

The party finally wound down at around 1. The younger students had gone to bed, as had most of the older ones. Mastermind had left, Mystique had sent the Brotherhood home with strict orders that they were to go _home_, and she and Magneto had left, muttering something about new tactics, which probably meant a mutual plan to win back their children's love. Xavier had fallen asleep in his chair, and someone had taken a marker to his face. Storm was shooing a few stragglers upstairs to bed, and Logan was in the kitchen drinking a beer. He had refused to go to bed while Sabretooth was loose in the mansion; Sabretooth, on the other hand, was currently playing rock-paper-scissors with Gambit and Colossus to determine who would be designated driver that night.

And Pyro? Pyro was playing with his new Magic Nine Ball.

"Oh Magic Nine Ball, will my next book be a hit?" He shook it. "Titanic, director's cut? What's that got to do with it?"

He threw it against the wall, where it hit with a thunk and rolled over to his feet. 'Ask again later' appeared on the window.

What? You expected fairies or something?

"Come on Pyro," Gambit said. They had finally settled the designated driver question (it would be Piotr) and were ready to go. "You feel like going to a bar and getting drunk as a skunk?"

Pyro grinned. "You bet!"

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- A million pardons for this next section. Bubbles is only 19 years old and has never been in a bar. All of her knowledge is taken from movies, and so would be the reason for some horrible clichés about to be used.**

**(o.o.o)**

The bar they picked to take Pyro to was seedy, run-down, and populated by only a few late-nighters trying to drink away their problems. A pair of bikers in leather jackets had claimed the one pool table in the room. A TV was playing some game show called 'You Can't Win.' In the corner, a man sat alone with several empty glasses on the table in front of him. A balding man behind the bar was cleaning a glass with a dirty rag. (See? Clichés.) When they sat down, he nodded toward them before doing a double take. He walked over to them.

"Hey boys, who's the kid?"

"Pyro here just turned legal," Sabretooth growled, cuffing Pyro rather painfully on the shoulder. "Figured we'd bring him out and get him drunk. Bring us the usual, and bring the Runt a birthday special."

The others grinned, and Pyro was forced to wonder what was so funny. Truth be told, he was getting nervous. He hadn't been legal long when he went to America and suddenly couldn't drink anymore. That coupled with the fact that he knew his friends to be the type to play horrible tricks on him made him decide not to drink anything they gave him.

_Several drinks and three hours later…_

"For the last time, Pirates are way cooler than ninjas."

"No way. Ninjas kick pirate butt around the corner and back."

"What, guys with knives running around in their pajamas? What's intimidating about that? Now a pirate, a pirate gets to use really big weapons. They don't have to hide in the shadows and slink around. They take what they want, and screw anyone who tries to stop them."

"Pirates just run around on their little boats with their little birds and drink a lot. They can't even keep their body parts and they get scurvy! How is _that_ better than a stealthy ninja?"

Pyro and Piotr were watching the argument between their friends much like one watches a ping-pong game, i.e., moving their heads back and forth.

"I forget," Pyro said. "How did they get onto this conversation?"

"It started with a badly timed bald-joke and everything went downhill from there," Piotr replied.

"Oh, right! I remember that episode. That was a good one. Wheeee!" This last part was because he chose that moment to discover that his barstool could spin. "I tell ya' mate, I sure missed being able ta drink." He stood up and tried to walk, only to get dizzy and nearly fall as a result of both the alcohol and the spinning.

"Oh! Pyro! I've got you!" It was Ace. She grabbed him and helped him back to his seat. "Having a little trouble with gravity there, are you?"

"Naw, I'm fine." He squinted. "Acey? What are you doing here? I thought you were under age?"

"I didn't sneak in. I have an ID." She showed them a driver's license that clearly put her age at 21. Pyro didn't miss the way she avoided the question.

"Yeah, but aren't you under age? What are you doin' here?"

"That's a good question. You always seem to show up where we happen to be." Gambit and Sabretooth had abandoned their argument and were now staring intently at Ace. "Gambit don't believe in coincidences. You got something to hide?"

Ace smiled slyly. "All right, you've found me out. Truth is I'm an agent of a freelance mutant organization that seeks out mutants listed as terrorists and finds out if they're fit to go on in regular society. The theatre gig is just a cover."

Pyro laughed. "That's a good one Acey, but I know you're lying."

"Oh? Do tell."

"If that were true you wouldn't have told us."

"Unless I knew you'd think that."

"Eh…' They all looked at each other, not sure what to think. "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm meeting someone here. In fact, if a furry guy with pointy hair and ears and a fluffy tail comes in, send him to the back for me, would ya, Pyro?"

Pyro gave a half-salute and she ran off. With her gone, Pyro took the oppurtunity to have a look around. He perked up immediately.

"They have a karaoke machine here!" he said happily. "This is great!"

He ran up onto the stage, while the others stared. They had been coming to this bar for years- well, not years, but a long time, and they had _never_ noticed the karaoke machine. Pyro, meanwhile, had been there three hours and was trying to pick out a song.

"Got it! Perfect song, I _love_ this song." The music started, and he began to sing.

"The Spinach Inquisition, it's here and it's a hoot!" **(1)**

The others gave a collective groan of horror. How had that song made it into the selection?

"Y' t'ink he's had enough t' drink?" Gambit asked. "Maybe it's about time we went home. It's almost 4:30, and Gambit got plans t'morrow."

"You wanna try tellin' the Runt that he's had enough? I don't. Not one bit."

Pyro, meanwhile, had finished his song and started another one.

"Well out in the country we didn't have mortuaries and so it was always customary for the undertaker to do his job and lay yer kinfolk out at home."

"Where has Gambit heard dis song before?"

"The church would send ya foldin' chairs and ya'd have visitation and everything right there and when the nighttime came ya'd have ta sit up with the dead cause it wasn't right to leave 'em alone."

Gambit snapped his fingers. "That's right, it was when we went to Georgia a while back."

"Well the last time I sat up was '65 when my old arthritic Uncle Fred died. He was 97 an' s' stooped over the mortician couldn't straighten 'im out!"

"Da, I remember that. The girl on the other side of the bus would not stop singing along."

"They used a loggin' chain ta hold 'im down an' covered that all up with a cape and a gown an' didn' tell nobody in the fam'ly cause that's the kinda thing people don't wanna know about."

"Y'know, this could just be the alcohol talking, but the Runt's not that bad a singer when he's drunk."

"Well we were all sittin' there it was three in the mornin'…"

"Non, Gambit notices it too. De boy actually sounds pretty good."

"There came a great flash of thunder lightnin' and stormin.'"

"Could just be de alcohol, dough."

"That thunder clapped and that lightnin' flashed and that chain round old Uncle Fred went snap…"

"No, comrade, I am noticing it too."

"It rattled and fell to the floor with a thunk and Uncle Fred just sat right up!"

They all gaped, in awe, at the realization that Pyro had a drunken talent, kind of like how Leland Stottlemayer is smarter than Monk when he gets wasted or how Peter Griffin can play the piano. **(2,3)**

"…And I ain't sittin' up with the dead no more cause the dead started sittin up too!" **(4)**

Pyro finished his song and was greeted by the polite applause of his friends and the amused applause of a werewolf standing in the doorway. Sabretooth took one look at him before hissing and leaping straight up into the air, where he grabbed a light fixture and held on. The werewolf, if he noticed, chose not to comment.

"That was an excellent song, mate," he said with a light Welsh twang.

"Hey, thanks!" Pyro hopped offstage and shook hands with the British lycanthrope. "Er, 'r you here ta see Ace?"

"That's right. Do you know where she is?"

"Right back there." Pyro indicated the back door. "Say, aren't you underage, too?"

"That I am," the werewolf said. He gave a two-fingered salute as he backed through the door. "Cheers."

CRASH!

The light fixture that Sabretooth was hanging on had decided that it wasn't strong enough to support his weight and let go of the ceiling. Sabretooth shook glass out of his hair.

"Lousy canines."

**(o.o.o)**

"On top of the world lookin' down on creation…" **(5)**

They were on their way home, after deciding that it was late, (or early, depending on your point of view.) Pyro had consented to let Piotr drive his precious convertible, mostly because he had passed out drunk two seconds after sitting down. He was now in the backseat, using a very annoyed Sabretooth as a pillow and singing softly in his sleep.

"The lights of home are up ahead. I see Jason has left the porchlight on for us to see," Piotr said sleepily. He pulled the car into the garage and parked in Pyro's usual spot. "We are home, my friends."

Gambit stirred a little and jerked awake. He looked around and was surprised to find they were in the garage. He hadn't even realized that he was asleep. In the backseat, Sabretooth was trying to wake Pyro, who was clutching his arm like a pillow.

"Kid's got a surprisingly strong grip," he growled. Gambit sighed and tried to help. Between the two of them they managed to get him awake. He opened his bloodshot eyes and stared at them.

"Home already? Oh… uh…" He suddenly remembered all the traps he had set earlier. "Maybe we should go do something else. I mean, the night is still young! …Right?"

Gambit and Piotr were too tired to bother thinking about what he was up to. Sabretooth, on the other hand, had raised a kid (for a little while anyway) and remembered enough to know that Pyro was trying to hide something.

"Sorry Runt." He grabbed the newly legal pyromaniac and slung him over his shoulder. "Whatever it is you're tryin' ta hide, we'll find out anyway."

Pyro whimpered as Sabretooth followed the other two into the living area of the base.

"What… the…"

"My walls!" Sabretooth dropped St. John to the ground and rushed over to inspect the damage to the walls he worked hard to keep clean. "What did you do?!"

Pyro tried to escape notice by edging towards the nearest door, which happened to be the kitchen. He pushed the door open and took one step before he came face to face with Mastermind duct-taped to the wall. He glared at Pyro. His eyes would have conveyed their message clearly even if he hadn't been mentally yelling at Pyro the whole time.

"Oh yeah," he said sheepishly. "Forgot about that trap."

Mastermind glared. _/If you don't get me down from here I will give you nightmares for the rest of your life, understand? And I know your biggest fears./_

"All right, all right, fine." He began untaping the psychic from the wall. He was working on the tape on his arms when he heard the varied yells of anger from the others, mostly promising him pain. He took off running, yelling to Jason as he did. "Hey, you can get the rest, right?"

**(o.o.o)**

_I ended up sleeping in a tree that night. Let me tell you, I have no idea how Sab's does it all the time. Maybe it's a cat thing. Anyway, I didn't get much sleep and I had a whole lot of time to think through the situation, and you know what?_

_I felt really bad about all my pranks after the party. I mean, the others were busy trying to make sure that I enjoyed my birthday and I just pulled some petty pranks. And all because they wanted to spend time away from me. _

_Anyway, I finally convinced them of what happened and they managed to forgive me. I have some great friends._

**(o.o.o)**

_Three months later…_

"Hey guys, I finally got my film developed from the party last March!"

Pyro came in through the front door waving the Wal-Mart envelope in his hand. The others, who were sitting around the living room watching, of all things, _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_, looked around at him.

"I thought you guys didn't like this movie?"

"It ain't so bad if you ain't sitting there sayin' there lines before 'em."

"Oh. Um… Anyway, I finally developed my pictures from the party. Here, have a look."

He handed them the pictures. They took them and looked through them.

"Wait, Pyro, this one isn't from the party. It's from that picnic we all went on."

"Yeah, why did we go on that thing, anyway?"

"Something about Wanda being really depressed and getting a huge cut in our salaries if we didn't go along with it."

"Oh, that's right. Ack! Veronica!"

They all yelped as Pyro's pet ferret jumped onto the table and grabbed one of the sandwiches. She ran off and they ran after her. The picture in their hands fluttered to the floor. Pyro stopped and picked it up and looked at it.

They were all sitting around the fountain in the park. Toad and Pietro had teamed up to try pushing a water-phobic Sabretooth into the fountain, but the effect was akin to a leaf in a snowstorm. Wanda and Pietro were sitting on the edge of the fountain, trying to avoid the fight. Lance, Fred and Gambit were standing off to the side, calling advice to their favorite side. Mastermind and Magneto could be seen at a hotdog stand a little ways away. Magneto looked appalled, probably at the contents of the hotdog that Mastermind was getting from the vendor. Pyro, who had taken the picture, was leaning so that he was just on the edge and flashing a thumbs-up at the group.

Pyro grinned. His friends were great.

"Pyro, come help us catch this blasted weasel of yours!"

Pyro dropped the picture onto the table and ran off after them.

"Veronica is not a weasel, she's a ferret!"

**(o.o.o)**

**A/N- So yeah, that was the end. The story's over. Um, except for the Interlude type thing that's coming in a bit. And Veronica is the ferret that Pyro put into Magneto's room earlier. He managed to convince Mags to let him keep it.**

**Whoo, I am glad to be done with this story. It was fun, and a great run, but I'm glad it's over. Now, the next two stories to come out will be called, **_**When the Doctor Met Jack**_** (Torchwood oneshot) and **_**The Fears of Pietro**_** (Evo oneshot). They'll come out during the waiting period for the vote on the next story. Just something to keep me occupied. The polls will officially close on April 10, 2008, and then I will post either **_**The Problem With Parents**_** or **_**Adventures on Ploog**_**. But you should vote, because I'm very disappointed in the voter response so far.**

**(1) **_**The Spinach Inquisition**_**, from a Codename: Kids Next Door episode.**

**(2) From the Monk episode **_**Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas**_

**(3) Form some episode of **_**Family Guy**_

**(4) **_**Sittin' Up With the Dead**_**, by Ray Stevens**

**(5) I have no idea the name of this song or the artist. Someone tell me so I can disclaim it properly.**

**The werewolf, whose name is Colby by the way, can be found pictured at my deviantART account (link in profile), along with a picture of Snap and of Ace.**

**Okay now, ta!**

**And review!**

**And vote!**


	8. Interlude: It's Over, Now Go Home

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy**

**By The Bubbles**

**Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries. **

**Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy!**

**A/N- And now, we get to see what the boys thought of the story you just read. Like any interlude, it is 'off-camera' and in real time, which means it may make reference to stuff that hasn't happened yet. Yeah. I'm weird like that. Also, it doesn't have to be read, but I love the Interludes and put them up anyway.**

**Oh yeah, and XFT is a fairy tale based Fanfic/comic thing I did years ago. The full title is Mutant Manor Story Time, but it is fondly referred to as XFT. I'll just let you ponder that for a while.**

**(o.o.o)**

**Interlude- It's Over, Now Go Away**

**(o.o.o)**

Nighttime. The clock on the mantle was flashing midnight. Outside, the moon shone through the window, illuminating the figure of a person walking through the corridors of the Institute.

The person was female, wearing a yellow vest over a pair of jeans and a black ninja suit. She was sporting a long curling monkey tail, topped with a tail-ring that sat in midair a few inches below the tip. Her brown hair was pulled into pigtails, and her feet were bare, exposing a pair of semi-opposable big toes. Her name was Snap, and she was trying to do her job, for once.

It made Snap quite sad that she had to sneak around to do her job. Her job was much easier when the natives of a 'verse are not afraid of her.

Of course, they wouldn't be afraid of her if she didn't pull mallets and axes and pointy sticks bigger than her out of her pockets and menace them with it when they defied her boss's wishes… or when they annoyed her… or when she was bored.

Currently, Snap had been charged with the task of getting the cast's response to the story. Bubbles had practically shoved her through the portal to Evoverse while saying something about getting work done without a stupid monkey looming over her shoulder.

Snap was currently searching out the mutant known as Sam Guthrie, AKA Cannonball. As the only person in the Institute not afraid of her (and one of the few in the 'verse), Sam would be sure to help her.

"Saaaaa-aaaaaam!" So much for silence. Snap had finally found the door to Sam's room and was banging on it for him to come out. "Sam, I neeeed you!"

"If Ah had a dolla' fo every time Ah heard that one…" mumbled a muffled voice on the other side of the door. It swung open, revealing Sam in only his boxers. Snap practically dehydrated from the loss of water as she drooled. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"

"What's with all the racket?" a very gruff voice said behind them, made all the gruffer by the fact that the person using it had been woken from a very good dream. Now, I won't give you details, but let's just say that it involves a certain wind-rider and leave it at that, hmmm? "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Logan opened half-lidded his eyes all the way when he smelled a smell that he hadn't smelled since the XFT days several years ago. He began to back away, muttering incoherently as he did.

"It can't be you… never mind… I don't wanna know…" And thus, with a shudder, he disappeared back into his room.

They watched him with mild interest.

"Ah think he's still reeling from that whole Rumplestiltskin situation."

"But that was Bubbles!" Snap squealed defensively. "I had nothing to do with who got cast to what part! Well, except for the Hansel and Gretel episode… but I wasn't even there when she cast that episode!"

"Ya did force 'im inta tha costume though. His ego's never quite recovered."

"He'll get over it, the big baby."

"Not if you keep callin' 'im that. Anyway, what d' ya need me for? And couldn' it wait till mornin'?"

"No! It can't!"

She wrapped her tail around his waist and with a snap of her fingers, they disappeared with a 'woff.'

They reappeared in a largely metal room. Sam leant over woozily.

"Aw, man, Ah hate that sensation. It's like getting sucked up into a jiffy lube or something. Where are we?"

"We're at the Acolyte's base."

"And why do you need me?"

"Ehh…" Snap gave a sidelong glance at the still mostly naked mutant. She snapped her fingers and a set of clothes appeared in front of him. "Put those on before I get too distracted from my job."

He took the clothes and complied with her request, partly from embarrassment, but also partly because he was cold. (Yeah, Mags finally sprung for an air conditioner.) Once he was dressed, he repeated his question, and Snap shrugged.

"I have a job to do and I thought you might want to be my assistant."

Someone saying, "Oh dear God, it's you!" interrupted whatever reply he was about to make. Snap turned around. It was Sabretooth. His was bristling and staring wide-eyed at her like Toad looks at soap.

And then he ran. He turned around and ran outside and clambered up a tree, where he perched for quite some time after that, hissing and clawing at anything that went by.

Now, there are only two things in the world that can make Sabretooth react in such a way. One is when Pyro turns the volume on the TV all the way up and then turns on Teletubbies.

"Aww…" Snap's tail drooped sadly. "He doesn't like me."

And the other is Snap.

"Hey hey, Snappy's here!" Pyro called. He and Gambit were coming in from a late night on the town and had spotted Sabretooth in the tree.

Pyro, as Bubbles' favorite character, automatically liked all of her muses. Besides, anyone who can reduce Sabretooth, Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Magneto to a quivering mass of cowering babies with her presence alone has _earned_ his respect. He grabbed her hands and swung her around happily.

"What are ya doin' here, Snappy?"

"I need to get your reactions on the story," she explained, suddenly all business. "I presume you've all finished reading it?"

"Oh yeah, I loved it!"

"Hold that thought, Pyro." Snap snapped her fingers and a notebook and pen appeared in mid-air in front of Sam. "Here, write this stuff down."

"Maybe Wolverine an' Sabretooth 'ave got the raht ahdea," Sam muttered as Pyro began talking.

"I just loved it! All the stuff and the things and the other stuff! I was all like, "Waaaah!" and they were all like, "Eeeeeeee!" and Sab's was all like, "Grrrrrr!" and Jason was all like, "Meh."

Sam sighed as he transcribed the speech. "Hey, is 'Eeeeeeee' spelled with seven e's or eight?"

"Eight, _duh_. Hey Gambit, what'd you think?"

Gambit shrugged. "Lot's o' scenes wit' mah Chere, but too many wit' Gambit getting' hurt. All in all, a nice little story that let Pyro bother someone else for a little while."

"You guys are horrible," Sam said as he finished scribbling that down. "Pyro's not that bad to have around." He turned to Snap, only to find her no longer beside him.

While Gambit was talking, Snap had run over to Colossus and climbed up to his shoulders, where she was now perched like an oversized monkey. Her tail curled loosely around to his other shoulder.

"Boss told me to tell you she's sorry about not giving you a bigger part. She tried, but it just wouldn't come out cause you're so nice. Like a poodle! Heh. Inside joke." She jumped off his shoulder and ran to Mastermind's room. She straightened up and began pounding on the door. "Jason! Jason, come out here! Jaaaaa-son!"

"No! I don't want to and you can't make me! I want naught to do with you, you horrible little monkey person!"

"Why you… Jerk!"

She kicked the door, only to have it hurt her toe. She jumped around, clutching it painfully, and shouted like a cross between a chimpanzee and a howler monkey. There was the sound of running, and Jason threw the door open.

"You leave my mother out of this," he said angrily. Snap smirked.

"Whoah, that's amazin'!" Sam said in awe. "I thought you two just looked like monkeys, I didn't know you could talk like 'em too!"

Mastermind glared at him, and he went back to writing.

"Well since you're out here…" Snap weedled. He sighed.

"Fine. I wasn't happy with your boss's portrayal of me."

"Well if you had more of a personality. And uh, confidentially speaking," she gestured for him to lean down and whispered in his ear. His mouth stretched into a broad grin.

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm. All you."

"I can live with that." He went back into his room.

"What'd ya tell him?" Sam asked.

Snap winked. "I said, _confidential_. Now, all that's left is Sabretooth."

He followed he out to the yard, where Sabretooth was still in the tree. "What about Magneto?"

"What about him? Oh, I see. Nope, I'm not allowed within a hundred feet of him since he took out that restraining order." They had come to the base of the tree. "Sabretooth, come out of that tree so I can talk to you!"

"No!"

"Look, either you came down or I'm coming up! Hey! Now there was no call for that! Ow! Hey! Quit throwing squirrels at me!" She ducked, and the poor thing landed right on Sam's face. "That's it, if you ain't down in three seconds, you're gonna regret it!"

He glared, and then realized that she wasn't bluffing. He limbed down from the tree.

"There, now was that so hard? Look, I only wanted to know what you thought of the story."

He snorted. "I thought there were too many inconsistencies. For one, Colossus met Kitty before, and they helped each other a lot in that one episode. For another, Magneto had Wanda erase the memories of the asylum from Wanda's mind. For another, I thought they were going to leave me behind in the fourth chapter, but in the fifth one I left with them. Also in those chapters, in one Wanda said that she was there to return a book, but in the next she went there with us."

Snap frowned. "Trust Sabretooth to find the flaws. Ok. Some time between the end of the series and now, Wanda got her memories back. As to the chapter four and five thing, Wanda lied to her dad and the others decided to bring you along anyway. To the Kitty and Colossus thing, Bubbles forgot about that episode."

"'Forgot… that… episode." Sam finished writing down the reply and handed the notepad to Snap. "Can Ah go home now? Ah've got this DR session in just a few hours an' I need sleep or Logan'll kill me."

"Okay. I'll send you home now. Bye, Love!" She snapped her fingers and Sam disappeared. "As for the rest of you…" She looked around. They had all fled. "Oh. Guess I'll be going home now then."

**(o.o.o)**

Bubbles typed the sentence, took a bite of her peanut-butter-and-potato-chip sandwich, frowned, erased the sentence, and retyped it with different wording. This also seemed to disappoint her. She hit the backspace key a little too hard in her frustration.

Woff

"Sounds like you need me." Snap looked over the writer's shoulder and inspected the sentence her boss was working on.

"Not you, specifically," Bubbles corrected. "But that is the last time I send all three of my muses away at the same time."

"All of us? Where are the other two?"

"The Doc is off psychoanalyzing the Brotherhood boys and Ace is in the Whoniverse trying to convince Jack to give her his pterodactyl."

Snap looked startled. "Did you tell her to do that?"

"What? No! That's her project." She pointed to the notepad in Snap's hands. "Is that the report?"

"Yup. All the Acolytes. Except for Magneto. You know. The _restraining order_."

Bubbles chose to employ her selective hearing ability at this. Several years ago, at the end of XFT's long reign, Magneto had tried to put out a restraining order on Snap. Bubbles had fought this, and it had come close to going to the courts, when Magneto threatened to have her and her ilk banned from Evoverse. Bubbles had pointed out that as a fictional character and adversary to boot, he didn't have that power. He had retorted that he would see it done if he had to go all the way to Stan Lee Himself. At the threat of getting on her hero's bad side, Bubbles had written up and signed the order herself.

"Hmm…" Bubbles read through the report. "So who'd you get to be your helper monkey?"

Snap bristled indignantly at the use of the phrase helper monkey but otherwise ignored it. "I got Sam to help me. Isn't he just the cutest? He wrote everything down just as it was said. He's such a doll, right?"

Bubbles shook her head as Snap rambled on. At least she wasn't overobsessing about Kurt at the moment.

**(o.o.o)**

**And there's the Interlude! Heh, just a bit of randomossity for ya.**


End file.
